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Mysteries of the Neapolitan Convents. 



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MYSTERIES 



NEAPOLITAN CONVENTS; 



WITH A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE EARLY LIFE OF THE AUTHORESS. 



BY 

HENEIETTA ' qARA CCIOLO, 

EX-BEIfEDICIIJTB SVTSS. 



TRANSLATED FEOM THE FOURTH ITALIAN EDITION, BY 

J. S. IlEDFIELD, 

LATE V. S. CONSUL AT OTEANIO AND BEI^DISI, ITALY. 



■VriTia: ^N" IN-T R O D XJ C T lO >T. 
By EEY. JOHN BOWLING, D. D., 

AUTHOE OF "HISTOEr OF EOMANISM," ETC. 



'^ HARTFORD: 
PTJBLISHED BY A. S. HALE & CO. 

87 Asylum Stebet. 
18 6 7. 



.03/^55 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by 
A. SIDNEY D. REDFIELD, 
the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District e 



BOCEWELL & ROLLINS, STEEEOTTPEBS i»inj PrUTIIBS, 

122 Washinqton Sibeet, BosTOir. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



In writing these Memoirs, it lias been my intention to confirm, 
so far as my experience goes, the reasonableness, and the justice 
of the measure now before the Italian government, supx^ressing 
monasticism ; and, at the same time, to undeceive those, if there 
remain any, who really believe that thes^ institutions are the 
asylums of all the religious virtues. 

That the individuals confined in these convents are entirely 
useless to society, there are none, at the present day, who ai*e 
ignorant. But this is not sufficient. I propose also to show, in 
the revelations I shall make, that they are not only useless, and 
even noxious, but that they represent an order of ideas long 
since effete, and that they are in direct opposition to the opinions 
of the civilized world in the nineteenth century. 

Without monastical seclusion, would so many beautiful young 
women ever allow themselves to be buried by unnatural parents, 
or through the artifices of their confessors, in prisons inaccessible 
to every social illumination, to every voice of humanity? Or 
would they ever be tempted to make a vow, which snatches them 
away, irrecoverably, from the duties and affections of the family, 
for which they were especially created by God, and, after a con- 

V 



VI AUTHOR S PREFACE. 

sumptive existence, descend prematurely to the tomb, denied, in 
their last illness and death, the care and sympathy of mothers, 
sisters, or friends ? I know that they are not few nor powerless, 
those who wear the cassock, as well as those who do not, who 
are still partisans of monasticism ; and that it may be objected, 
that if my judgment of the effects of monasticism be true, all 
the nuns, since they have now the liberty to do so, would, ere 
this, have abandoned the cloister, and that the convents ought 
now to be uninhabited. It is very certain that this has not hap- 
pened to any great extent, especially in these our meridional 
pi'ovinces. 

To this I reply, that the confessors of these unfortunate creat- 
ures make it their especial care to depress the spirits of their 
penitents, instilling into their minds egotism and misanthroijy, 
which certainly form no part of the religion of Christ, and mak- 
ing them believe that outside of the parlatorio are to be found 
only perdition and hell, and that the maledictions of heaven and 
the thunders of Rome are held in readiness to be launched upon 
the head of the poor creature who passes the threshold of the 
convent after once having taken the vows. The nun who be- 
lieves these things — and they who dare to doubt them are few — 
can scarcely be expected to commit what she is taught to regard 
so great a sacrilege. 

If it should be thought that I have been silent in regard to 
some particulars, or that I have purposely left in the shade some 
vicissitudes of my own life, which were not unworthy to see the 
light, I can only say, that I have felt constrained, in several in- 
stances, to strike out from these Memoirs, the advantages of some 



AUTHOE'S preface. VII 

colorings and dramatic reliefs, wliicli would, I am well con- 
vinced, have made them more attractive. But this loss is entirely 
my own ; these excisions have been made out of respect due to 
the dead, — to families as well as to myself. 

ENBICHETTA CAEACCIOLO. 
Castellamaee, 1864, 



TRANSLATOR TO THE READER. 



The "Mysteries of the Neapolitan Convents" was written 
mainly withi a view to expose to the world the monastic system, 
as it has existed in Italy until within a few years ; and as it exists, 
of course, to-day in every country in which it is tolerated ; and 
incidentally, to justify the action of the Italian government in 
suppressing the institution of monasticism in that country. 

From the date of this decree, some six or seven years back, no 
more monks or nuns can be made there. Monastical property has 
been confiscated, the monSs and nuns now living being allowed, 
by the government, a small daily stipend for their subsistence, 
and when these die there will be an end of monasticism in what 
now comprises the kingdom of Italy. 

The circulation of this book there has contributed, in no slight 
degree, it is conceded, to reconcile the people to the action of 
the government, by placing before them, in all its enormity, a 
veritable account of the wickedness and irreligion which are 
found to exist in these institutions, under the garb of the religious 
life. 

The authoress has shown that the shutting up of young girls in 
the seclusion and inertia of convent life is the worst possible use 

IX 



X TEANSLATOR TO THE READER. 

to which they can be put. That seijarating them from the world, 
from intercourse with their families and friends, and placing them 
where they are compelled to regard their priestly confessor as 
father, mother, brother, and sister, they frequently come, natu- 
rally enough pei'haps, to look upon him also as a lover; and that, 
in consequence, the vice of prostitution is by no means uncom- 
mon in convents. That this monotonous life leads also to insan- 
ity, and that although, in the monastical nomenclature, the nuns 
are called the "Spouses of Christ," and are generally supposed 
to lead a pure and holy life before God, yet she shows that vice 
and crime of almost every descrij)tion are as common within 
these sacred ( .P) enclosures, as they are in the world outside. 

Of all this we apprehend the reader will be fully convinced 
before he finishes the book. 

That the authoress has «• nothing extenuated nor aught set 
down in malice," some one may be found, perhaps, to doubt. If 
this sceptical reader could have had the advantage which the 
translator has had of living for several years in these Neapolitan 
provinces, and of hearing all the statements in this book confirmed 
by the most intelligent Italians, — even by some priests, who 
belonged to the liberal party, — and of reading the reports of the 
criminal courts, of the trials of monks and priests, which have 
taken place there within a few years, for crimes committed within 
these temples dedicated to God, — to the enormity of which there 
is nothing recorded in this book which affords any parallel, — he 
would no longer doubt that Signorina Caracciolo* might have 
used much stronger colors than she has used in the picture she 
has given of convent life. 

• Pronounced Car-ratsh-e-o-lo. 



TRANSLATOR TO THE READER. XI 

The judicious reader will not fail to observe that the revelations 
in this book afford no argument, nor is it claimed that they do, 
against the Eoman Catholic religion itself; but, against priestly 
intolerance, hypocrisy, and bigotry, and against the institution of 
monasticism as it exists to-day, it is reeking with such stubborn 
facts and scathing arguments as cannot fail to command the 
attention of the most indifferent reader. 

Bkooklyn, N. T., Sept., 186?. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The deeply interesting narrative, written and published in the 
Italian language, a few years ago, from the pen of a noble lady, 
a grand-daughter of Genaro Caracciolo, Prince of Forino, under 
the title of " The Mysteries of the Neapolitan Convents, with a 
Brief Sketch of the early Life of the Author," of which the follow- 
ing is a translation, is one of the most remarkable of the produc- 
tions which the reviving spirit of Italian freedom has evoked, 
within the last few years, since priestly tjTanny has lost its power 
in that classic and beautiful, but long oppressed, and down-trod- 
den land, to fetter the press, and since awakened Italy has been 
in a state of transition from despotism and anarchy to constitu- 
tional liberty and unity. 

The American translator of the work, well known as a veteran 
publisher of the city of 'New York, has enjoyed unusual facilities 
for his task as a translator, and for gaining a thorough and prac- 
tical knowledge of the working of the Eomish system in Italy, 
having resided for several years in the ISTeapolitan dominions, 
and in the very midst of the scenes so graphically brought before 
the eye of the reader, in the interesting narrative of the ex- 
Benedictine Nun, Signorina Caracciolo. 

2 xm 



XIV INTKODUCTION. 

Had the authoress of this volume dared to issue this exposure 
of convent life, in any part of the Pope's dominions, she would 
have soon felt the weight of the strong arm of papal power and 
vindictiveness. Thank God, the temporal dominions of the Pope 
have been, of late years, rapidly contracting in dimensions ; 
while the degree of freedom enjoyed in other portions of Italy 
has been constantly increasing, just in proportion as the power 
and influence of the Pope and priests have been diminishing. 
Had any one presumed to write and to print such a woi'k as the 
following, in the kingdom of Naples, a dozen years ago, during 
the reign of the cruel and bigoted Ferdinand, that j)et and tool 
of Pope Pius IX., the author would have been soon effectually 
silenced, either by the executioner, or by being consigned to 
those gloomy and terrible dungeons, where, in the year 1857, 
Mr. Gladstone found not less than thirteen thousand suffering 
patriots, the languishing victims of I'oyal and priestly vengeance. 

The ten years that have passed away, since the friends of lib- 
erty and Protestantism were horrified and electrified by the terrible 
revelations of the unveiled prisons of Naples, have been fruitful 
in great and glorious events. The bloody tyrants of Naples 
have been driven from their throne; Garibaldi has marched 
through the land, unfurling the banner of freedom ; the larger 
portion of the domains of the Pope has cast off his hateful rule ; 
Venice, at last, has been annexed to Italy ; and now, with the 
excei)tion of a petty principality around the city of Rome, about 
the size of the State of Connecticut, all Italy is united in one mild 
and peaceful government, under Victor Emanuel ; while through- 
out the entix'e peninsula, with the insignificant exception men- 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

tioned, the press is unfettered ; liberty of conscience is guaran- 
teed by the law ; the Bible in the vernacular may be circulated 
and read in Florence, and Turin, and Venice, and even in 
Naples, as freely as in London, or in New York ; * and what is, 
pei'haps, as signal a blessing as any we have named, considered 
with respect to the future prosperity of Italy, the convents, both 
male and female, have been suppressed, the lauds and posses- 
sions used for ages to support in idleness myriads of woi"se than 
useless monks and nuns have been confiscated to the govern- 
ment, and their lazy and worthless inmates have been sent forth 
into the world, to earn at least a portion of their living, like 
honest men and women. 

In accomplishing this last-named result, the work now given to 
the American public, in an English dress, effected a most impor- 
tant part. When published in Italian, it was, at once, seen to be 
a thorough, fearless, and authentic exposure, of the misery, the 
slavery, and the horrors of female convent life, and of the tyranny 
and lust of the priestly libertines, who, under the guise of con- 
fessors, have free ingress to these female prison-houses, and pos- 
sess an almost absolute control over the bodies and the souls of 
their wretched inmates. 



* The impotent rage and dismay of the papal priesthood, at the advance of relig- 
ious freedom in Naples, and throughout the kingdom of Italy, may be seen from 
the following extract from a recent pastoral of the Cardinal Archbishop of 
Naples. " Audacity has arrived at such a height," says he, " as to erect in Naples, 
in the midst of a people whoUy Catholic, and in one of the most beautiful and 
popular quarters, a public temple to Protestanism." From the language and spirit 
of this, and similar documents, we may gather what would be the consequences to 
Protestantism and to freedom, should the Pope ever regain his lost power and 
influence in Italy. 



XVI INTRODUCTION. 

Written by a lady, belonging to a princely family, -well known 
as one of the most noble and distinguished of the former kingdom 
of Naples ; detailing, as the work does, in a style which possesses, 
at once, all the charm of a romance, with all the simplicity and 
verisimilitude of truth itself, the actual interior of eveiy-day 
convent life, by one, who simply relates what she had herself 
seen and experienced; published amid the very scenes she so 
vividly describes, in the immediate vicinity of the convents where 
she had been immured, and where she herself and the other 
actors in the history were extensively and familiarly known, and 
where, consequently, her statements might have been easily re- 
futed if exaggerated or false, yet where no one of the parties in- 
culpated dared to deny the literal truth of her statements, — it is 
not strange that such a work, written under such circumstances, 
should have produced a wonderful excitement among the Italian 
people, and contributed, as it unquestionably did, in a large de- 
gree, to that enlightenment of the public mind of all classes, from 
the prince to the peasant, which eventually resulted in those de- 
crees for the suppression of monasteries and nunneries, which 
in a few years will rid the whole of reconstructed Italy of these 
swarming nests of tyranny, laziness, impurity, and corruption, 
which have, for ages, been the curse of every popish country, but 
more than all others, of poor, pope-ridden and priest-ridden 
Italy. 

Speaking of the present work, in the original Italian, says a 
gifted clergyman (the Rev. J. A. Wylie, LL. D.), who had spent 
much time in that country, and was, therefore, well qualified to 
write of " the awakening of Italy, and the crisis of Rome :" — 



INTRODUCTIOlSr. XVII 

"But wliy reason from the laws of the human constitution, 
when there are so many facts at hand telling us what convents 
have been always and everywhere? But the other day Hen- 
rietta Caracciolo opened the doors of the N"eapolitan cloisters, 
and bade us look with our own eyes. Her womanly delicacy has 
partly concealed the hideousness which she dared not nakedly 
discover ; still no reader of ' The Mysteries of the Neapolitan 
Convents,' of ordinary penetration, can fail to see the awful 
sufferings of which these places are the abodes, and the shame- 
ful wickedness enacted within their walls. In the convent, there 
is no moral light and air ; and to expect love to blossom in a con- 
vent is like expecting color in the darkness, or life in a sepul- 
chre. The heart, finding nothing without, turns in upon itself, 
and becomes the seat of foul desires, or of evil passions. Her 
description I'eminds us of the picture which Paul draws of the 
heathen world, — 'without natural affection, implacable, unmerci- 
ful.' Instead of a paradise of purity and love, the cloister, as 
here drawn, is a pandemonium, the inmates of which hiss and 
sting like serpents, and torment one another like furies. And 
then the vow, which makes their sufferings immortal, leaves them 
hope of escape only in the grave. Never was there on earth 
slavery more foul or bitter; and never was there decree more 
humane and merciful than that by which Italy declared that this 
bondage should no longer disgrace its soil or oppress its chil- 
dren." 

Such a moral cancer could be cured by no mild or external 
remedies. If eradicated at all, it must be by the knife of entire 
and unsparing excision. 



XVIU INTRODUCTION. 

Some few attempts had been made, at dijfferent times, by zeal- 
ous and well-meaning men in the Romish church, to reform these 
institutions without destroying them, and to lessen the disorders 
and imijurities of convent life. They speedily found, however, 
that the task was a more formidable one than that of Hercules, 
in attempting to cleanse the fabled Augean stables, and soon 
abandoned it in despair. 

Such an abortive effort was made near the close of the last 
centuiy, about the time of the French Revolution, by Scipio 
di Ricci, an Italian Roman Catholic bishop, who, at the command 
of Leopold, the reigning Duke of Tuscany, undertook the task of 
inquiring into, and, if possible, of rooting out the terrible abomi- 
nations which were known to prevail in the convents of that part 
of the Italian peninsula. In the disclosures made at that time, 
by this Romish bishop, all, and more than all that is charged in 
the present work against these " holds of every foul spirit," is 
proved without the shadow of a doubt. In that work, there are 
given several letters and memorials from prioresses and others of 
the more aged and virtuous inmates of the Italian nunneries, who 
mourned over these horrible corruptions, and sighed in vain for 
their correction. A few sentences from one or two of these 
letters, descriptive of the nature and extent of these immoralities 
of the monks and nuns, may be regarded as a specimen of many. 
Says the aged Flavia Peraccini, Prioress of the Convent of Cathe- 
rine of Pistoia: "It would require both time and memory to 
recollect what has occurred during the twenty-four years that I 
have had to do with monks, and aU that I have heard tell of 
them. With the exception of three or four, all that I ever knew. 



INTEODUCTION. XIX 

alive or dead, are of the same character. They have all the same 
maxims and the same conduct. . . . The priests are the 
husbands of the nuns and the lay brothers of the lay sisters. 
. . . They deceive the innocent, and even, those that are 
more circumsj)ect, and it would need a miracle to convei'se with 
them and not fall. ' Poor creatures,' said I to an English pro- 
vincial, ' they think they are leaving the world to escape danger, 
and they only meet with greater.' God is my witness," adds this 
Eoman Catholic lady-prioress, "I speak without passion. The 
monks have never done anything to me personally, to make me 
dislike them ; but I will say that so iniquitous a race as the monks 
nowhere exists. . . . Do not suppose that this is the case 
in our convent alone. It is just the same at Lucca, at Prato, at 
Pisa, at Perugia. Everywhere it is the same ; eveiywhere the 
same disorders, everywhere the same abuses i^revail. Let 
the superiors suspect as they may, they do not know even the 
smallest part of the enormous wickedness that goes on between 
the monks and the nuns." 

One of the other letters is addressed to the Grand Duke himself, 
by a nun of the Convent of Castiglion Piorentino, who describes 
herself as "about fifty years of age," in which, after detailing 
similar corruptions and vices in the convent, she requests the 
duke to institute the necessary investigations into these disorders, 
without making known the fact that she had communicated with 
him. The reason she assigns for this request sjaeaks volumes as 
to the terrible internal condition of these prison-houses of miseiy 
and despair. "For," says she, "if what I now write to you 
were known, it would be sufficient to cause me to be poisoned by 
my companions, who are totally given up to vice." 



XX INTRODUCTION. 

Testimonies such as these, not from Protestant sources, but 
from the inmates of the convents themselves, confirming, as they 
do, most conclusively the testimony of the authoress of the jDresent 
volume, must be admitted even by Roman Catholics as absolutely 
conclusive proof of the incurable corrujDtion of these institu- 
tions. 

It may be asked, however, if such proofs had been previously 
given to the world, why had not these institutions been long ago 
suppressed ? And what need is there of the present work as an 
additional proof of the damning corruption which had already 
been so fully established? 

To the first of these questions it may be replied : Till within a 
few years, throughout the whole of Italy, the influence of Pope, 
and cardinals, and priests has, for ages, been paramount and all- 
pervading. The fact of the debasing slavery and the licentious- 
ness and corruption of the convents would to them have been 
no reason for their suppression. Papal Rome has ever remained 
true to the inspired description of her character. " Mystery, 
Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of 
the earth." 

The brave and patriotic Garibaldi, born and bred amid these 
scenes, knew whereof he affirmed, when lately, addressing the 
students of the University of Pavia, he spoke of the cause of his 
country's degradation, and said: "In the midst of Italy, at its 
very heart, there is a cancer called Popery, — an imposture called 
Popery. Yes, young men, we still have a formidable enemy, the 
more formidable because it exists among the ignorant classes, 
where it rules by falsehood, because it is sacrilegiously covered 



INTEODUCTION. XXI 

witli the cloak of religion. Its smile is the smile of Satan. This 
enemy, young men, is the Popish priest ! — with few exceptions, 
the priests ! " 

To the second of these questions, — what need of yet another 
ex]posure of the abominations of the convent system? — it may be 
replied : The minds of the Italian people were prepared by recent 
events for this work at the time of the publication of the original ; 
and the minds of the American public are prepared at the present 
juncture for the publication of this work in an English transla- 
'tion. The terrible revelations of Bishop Ricci have been cited in 
confirmation of the present work; but these revelations were 
made many years ago, and few of the present generation, either 
in Europe or America, have ever heard of them; there was need, 
therefore, of a work, such as "The Mysteries of the ITeapolitan 
Convents," to convince the Italian people that these institutions 
were too radically corrupt for even the hope of reformation, and 
that the cause of humanity, as well as that of decency and 
morality, demanded their entire and universal suppression. 

The suppression of the monasteries and nunneries throughout 
the whole of Italy, with the exception of the papal States, was 
successfully accomplished, chiefly through the energy and firm- 
ness of Count Cavour, prime minister to King Victor Emanuel. 
In the session of the Chamber of Deputies for 1864, it was enacted 
that, "The religious orders should be no longer recognized by 
the state ; that their houses should be suppressed, and their goods 
placed under an ecclesiastical board ; and that the members of the 
suppressed corporations should acquu-e their civil and political 
rights from the date of the publication of the law." 



XXII INTRODUCTION. 

The Bumber of these institutions existing in Italy at the time 
of the suppression will sound startling to American and to Prot- 
estant ears. Let it teach them to beware of the gradual, but 
steady and rapid growth, in their own laud, of these same useless 
and corrupt institutions, which have been spewed out, even from 
papal countries of the Old World, as a curse, an abomination, and 
a disgrace. 

The number of convents actually suppressed in Italy was 
2,382. Of these, 1,506 were male convents or monasteries, and 
876 were female convents or nunneries. The value of the prop- 
erty possessed by them was forty million lire, or about eight 
millions of dollars. The number of the useless drones who 
inhabited these swarming hives was 15,494 monks, and 18,198 
nuns; 4,468 lay brothers, and 7,671 lay sisters; besides 13,441 
monks of the mendicant orders, and 8,967 lay brothers ; making 
a total of 63,239 persons. For these figures, taken from State 
papers, furnished by a member of the Parliament of Italy, we 
are indebted to the work of Dr. Wylie, before referred to. As 
this army of monks and nuns, thus turned adrift upon the world, 
had lived perfectly useless lives, and but a few of them were 
acquainted with any useful occupation, a small pension was 
granted them during life. "In Naples alone, according to the 
' Conciliatore'' of that city, not fewer than eleven convents of 
monks and six of nuns were suppressed during the first half of 
1865. A few years more, and the last mendicant monk in Italy, 
who has worn sandals and borne wallet, will be carried to the 
tomb, and the country completely freed from an incubus which 
has for ages crushed it." It is honor enough for the work of 



INTRODUCTION. XXIII 

Henrietta Caracciolo, now introduced to the American public, to 
have contributed to a result so full of blessing and of promise to 
the beautiful country of her birth. 

Would that a copy of this work, now given to the English- 
speaking American public, could be placed in every Protestant 
family in the United States ! And in Roman Catholic families, 
too ; for there are many such who are beginning to distrust the 
teachings of their priests, and to suspect the utility and the purity 
of the nunneries that are springing up throughout the land, 
yawning to engulf their daughters in the same vortices of slavery 
and corruption, as those from which the ex-Benedictine nun who 
wrote this volume was so happy to be released, and which are 
so graphically and truthfully described in her interesting nar- 
rative. 

If such a circulation were given to this work, I believe that 
many a- Protestant parent, now vmsuspectingly or heedlessly 
entrusting a son or a daughter to the male and female Jesuits 
who are filling the land with papal convents, under the guise of 
educational institutions, would see the folly and the wickedness 
of a course so suicidal to the best interests of their children for 
time and for eternity; many a Protestant young lady about to 
listen to the seducing persuasions of the wily Jesuits, who would 
entice her to enter these popish seminaries, would fly from them 
as she would from a serpent or an adder ; and perchance some 
poor Catholic girl, too, about to utter the irrevocable vow, warned 
by the example and the terrible experience of Henrietta Carac- 
ciolo, would draw back from the fearful gulf before her, and 
have reason forever to thank God and the writer of this boob 



XXIV INTRODUCTION. 

for the light that has warned her of the temble abyss of misery 
and despair, before she had made the fatal plunge. American 
convents, awed into at least an appearance of decency by the 
Protestant sentiment of the country, may throw a more impene- 
trable Tcil of concealment over their dark proceedings; but 
human nature is the same everywhere ; their character is the 
same ; no less than Italian convents here described are they all 
dark prison-houses, to those who enter them, of slavery, misery, 
corruption, and despair. 

Strange that they should ever exist in these free and enlight- 
ened United States ! Stranger still that they should sometimes 
grow and flourish through the patronage and support of Prot- 
estant Americans ! But, strangest of all, that American politi- 
cians should sell themselves to Rome, and buy Catholic votes 
with subsidies drawn from the pockets of Protestant tax-pay- 
ers to these un-American, jjopish institutions ! Let such time- 
servers and trucklers to an effete and degrading and tyrannical 
superstition, learn, from the perusal of the present volume, what 
the example of a noble Italian woman can teach them, of the 
inconsistency of such conduct with their characters as professed 
patriots, as Americans, as Protestants ! 

J. BOWLING. 

New York, September, 1867. 



COKTE]S"TS. 



INTEODUCTION, by Dr. Bowling, 



CHAPTER I. 

INPANCY. 

Birth — My father removes to Bari — Singular event — Return to Naples — Strait- 
ened circumstances — My father appointed Governor of Keggio — An amusing 
English sea-captain — Voyage to Messina — Reception at Reggio, . . 35 



CHAPTER n. 

EAELY LOVES. 

Carlo My unhappy passion for him — Disappointment and distress at his 

marrying another— Visit of King Ferdinand to Reggio— Accident to my 
sister Josephine — Alarming illness of my sister and myself— Domenico , 43 



CHAPTER HI. 

.4 
JEALOUSY. 

The three F's —Domenico very attentive — His grandfather demands my hand in 
marriage, from my parents, for his grandson — They are offended, and Domen- 
ico is prohibited from visiting our house— His terrible jealousy— My mother's 
3 25 



XXVI CONTENTS. 

.anger — Domenico more jealous than ever, and my mother more determined — 
Description of the grand festa of the Assumption at Messina — Kupture of the 
relations existing between Domenico and myself— Peace 68 



CHAPTER IV. 

SOEEOW. 

Earthquake at Eeggio— "We fly for safety to the piazza— Meet Domenico — His 
interview and reconciliation with my mother — He goes to Naples — We return 
to our house — Sudden illness of my father— His death, . , . .81 



CHAPTER V. 

THE. CLOISTEE. 

Funeralof my father— Keturn to Naples— "We meet Domenico there — "We mu- 
tually pledge ourselves to each other— He returns to Eeggio — His jealousy — 
My mother breaks off the match — A servant of my aunt, the Abbess of San 
Gregorio, brings me a present of confectionery, and informs me that the nuns 
of that convent have voted to admit me — Astounding news — I demand an 
explanation from my mother, who assures me that it is her own work, and* 
that she is driven to it by her stinted means, as well as by the determination 
to prevent my marriage with Domenico — She assures me that I may leave the 
convent at the end of a couple of months, if I do not like it — "V^isit the con- 
vent with her — First impressions— My mother thanks the nuns, according to 
custom, for admitting me — Keturn home — Preparations — Marriage of my 
sister Josephine — Entrance into the convent — Sensation of horror, . 89 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE ABANDONIVIENT. 

My mother deserts me — Two young nuns wait upon me around the convent— De- 
scription of the building and its appointments, pictures, etc. — Extracts from 



CONTENTS. XXVII 

the old cluoiiicle of Fulvia Caracciolo— Anxiety of the nuns that I should 
determine at once to take the veil — Paoliua— Jealousy among the nuns — 
Angiola Maria — Visit of my mother, who crueUy deceives me— Illness pro- 
duced by my incarceration, 105 



CHAPTER Vn. 

ECLESIASTICAL ESTABLISHMENTS OE NAPLES AND 
OTHER OE THE ITALIAN STATES. 

The nation one vast monastical congregation — General statistics of monasticism 
— Number of establishments, priests, et<!,, etc., in Naples— List of the mon- 
asteries and convents, with the number of their inhabitants — Results, . 126 



CHAPTEE Vin. 

SCENES AND CUSTOMS IN THE CONVENT. 

Mental characteristics of the nuns — Extracts from an ancient chronicle — An 
account of the assassination of a Genoese merchant — The confession — Sub- 
stitution of priests for the monks at the confessional — I go to confession for 
the first time in the convent- Caresses from the priest on this occasion — 
Such caresses general— A change of confessors — SUly twattle of the new 
canonico — Maddalena jealous —Endeavor to obtain still another confessor — 
Thwarted— A tempest in a teapot — Disreputable liaisons between the con- 
fessors and their penitents — Wiles employed by the former to corrupt the 
latter, 138 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE MIEACULOUS BELL. 

I put on the dress of the educanda — Endeavor to hold my mother to her promise 
to take me out of the convent — My confessor and the nuns solicitous to retain 
me— Kidiculous stories told to persuade or frightenf me to remain — They ad- 



XXVm CONTENTS. 

dress me anonymous letters— Nervous condition superinduced by these annoy- 
ances — I hear the miraculous bell — The convent in confusion— The nuns 
declare it to be the bell of Saint Benedetto calling me — Heave the convent — 
Letters from my sisters at Eeggio — They tell me that my mother is about to 
marry again, and no other home offering to me, I am persuaded to return to 
the convent — The die cast— Tlie fatal YES ! — I am received at the convent 
■with the ringing of bells and the firing of mortaletti— Reflections — Interview 
•with my aunt, the abbess — Final determination to sacrifice myself — Newspa- 
per announcement of the fact— Ceremony of taking the white veil— Protest 
of the English gentleman against cutting off my hair, . . . .172 



CHAPTER X. 



THE PROFESSION. 



The year of the novitiate— Marianna— Her death— Another change of abbess- 
Theresa — My relatives raise the necessary money to enable me to pay my way 
into the convent— Death of my sister Josephine — The holy stairs — Silly 
questions addressed to the candidate — Consequences of not conforming — The 
time arrives when the final vows must be taken, and I pronounce the vows of 
chastity, poverty, obedience, and of perpetual seclusion— The ceremony, 196 



CHAPTEE XI. 

THE CHAEITY OF THE ITONS. 

Charity considered — I demand the office of the infirmary, and am assigned to it — 
Want of charity of the nuns for an old abbess at her death-bed — Brutality 
of a conversa— Another instance of the same sort— Indifference of the nuns 
to the death of one of their own number— Suicide, in the convent, of a young 
country girl, from cruel treatment — Cruelty to a pet dog— Cruelty to a cou- 
versa— A nun attempts to poison one of her servants 213 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER Xn. 

THE POVEETY AND HUMILITY OE THE NtJNS. 

Eemark of Herder — ' ' Priestcraft " — "What the vows of poverty and humility de- 
mand — The making of confetti — The confessors always receive the best ; the 
relatives what remains— Heartlessness of two nun-sisters — Of another who 
hears the news of the death of her own sister— Jealousy of rank— A Barna- 
bite monk reprehended for preaching home-truths to the daughters of princes, 
dukes, counts, etc. — Instances of the ignorance of some of the nuns and 
abbesses, 221 

CHAPTER XHI. 

INSANITY m THE CONVENT. 

Tendency of convent life to insanity — Instances of nuns becoming insane— Hor- 
rible case of Angiola Maria— Her death— The case of the conversa Concetta 
— She precipitates herself over a stairway to the ground— Visit of an inspec- 
tor of police, and of the cardinal — Death of Concetta 235 

CHAPTER XIV. 

THEFT IN THE CONVENT. 

Numerous instances of stealing in the convent — Sacredness of the objects no 
exception — How the sisters cheat in confectionery and medicines, . . 266 

CHAPTER XY. 

.THE ACOLYTES. 

Theyoungpriestspatronizedby the nuns — Ceremony during Holy Week, in the 
convent, of washing the disciples' feet, one of the nuns personating the Saviour, 
and others the disciples — To see this ceremony, four acolytes climb to a posi- 
3* 



XXX CONTENTS. 

tion where they can observe it, and, at the same time, talk with the nuns I — I 
am nominated for the office of sacristan — Conspiracy of the nuns to inveigle 
me with one of the young priests — Its failure as regards me — Its success with 
thepoor acolyte— Final resolve, 277 



CHAPTER XVI. 

CHIAEINA (little CLAEA). 

Discontent with convent life — Failing health — Appeal through my physician to 
the pope — Opposition of the canonico — Entrance of Chiarina into the 
convent — Her great beauty— She is confided to my care — Her delicate 
health — Her distressing cough — The nuns make fun of her suffering — Ill- 
treated by her nurse — Her brother takes her from the convent— Circum- 
stances compel her to return — I vote against her readmission — Her sudden 



291 



CHAPTER XVn. 



CARDINAL KIARIO. 



The " head " of the church in Naples — His ignorance and conceit — The "spouses 
of Christ" are infatuated with him — He presents the nuns with a huge stur- 
geon, thinking it good to eat — He visits the convent and inquires for me — 
Demands my reasons for desiring to leave the convent, and declares his oppo- 
sition—I abandon myself to despair — He repeats his visit, and reasons with 
me to no purpose — He goes to Kome — I make another appeal to the Holy 
Father, which fails — The cardinal returns from Rome, bringing me a rosary 
which has been blessed by the pope, and demands some keepsake from me, in 
return, of my own working — He is refused— Another time he asks for some 
confetti of my own manufacture — He is again refused— My letter to the pope 
falls into the hands of the cardinal, who violates the seal of the confes- 
Bional, 304 



CONTENTS. XXXI 



CHAPTER XVin. 



1848. 



Italy in 1848— My sympathywith the revolutionary movement— My conversa re- 
solves to follow me — Excitement in Naples — Write to the pope again for 
permission to live out of the convent— Renewed opposition of the cardinal— 
The celebrated 15th of May — Barricades thrown up in the streets of Naples — 
The palazzo Gravina burned — The city declared in a state of siege — The pope 
finally grants my prayer in part— Consents that I leave the convent and live 
in a conservatorio — Difficulty in getting admission to one— Succeed finally, 
and leave San Gregorio for the Conservatorio di Costantinopoli, . . 326 



CHAPTER XIX. 

CONSERVATORIO DI COSTANTINOPOLI. 



History of the establishment — Permission to go out daily in a carriage — The 
ferocious portress — Nominated canoness of Bavaria — The three parties in 
the conservatorio — Impertinence of the superior — Scenes with her — She 
receives a merited castigation and is terribly frightened, and benefits by the 
lesson she receives — My mother makes a personal application to the pope for 
my enlargement, and fails — The pope visits Naples — Comes to the convent 
of San Giovanni, whither we go to see him— I receive a special benediction 
fromhim— My poverty— Am obliged to live on black bread— The cardinal 
refuses to yield— Flight .34! 



XXXn CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEE XX. 

L'ANNDNZIATA DI CAPUA. 

The cardinal astonished — He arranges with the police for my arrest — A dream — 
Keflections — Begin a letter to the cardinal — Kesolve to fly to Capua — My 
mother accompanies me — Eeception by Cardinal Capano — Enter the 
Annunziata — Horrible moral condition of the institution — The abbess — 
Dialogue with one of these women — Kevelationa of another — Her supersti- 
tion, 365 

CHAPTER XXI. 

THE AEEEST. 

Sad days in the Annunziata— Cardinal Capano endorses my application to the pope, 
and recommends my secularization — His sudden death, which is a death-blow to 
my hopes — Return to Naples — Father Spaccapietra— Some months of truce- 
My mother goes to Gaeta, and I to live with a married sister — My complicity 
with the liberal movement— My arrest — Consigned to the Ritiro di Mondra- 
gone — My servant not permitted to accompany me— H Morbili — Filthy con- 
dition of the institution — Gallantry of a priest repulsed. .... 381 



CHAPTER XXn. 

Hi EITIEO DI MONDEAGONE. 

horrible incarceration— Visit of the priora— TTriting materials denied me — 
Prohibited talking to, or seeing any one, whatever, or even to look out of a 
window — My distress — Am I really sane? — Four days absolutely without 
food — Doctor Sabinl — Examination of my trunks by the priest in charge — 



CONTENTS. XXXin 

Tbe doctor brings me good news, which proves a better restorative than his 
medicines, and I take food again — The good doctor had deceived me; his good 
news was an invention of his own— Write to my mother, enclosing my letter 
in my dirty clothes, which I send to her to be washed, and receive answers in 
the same way — Letter to my mother — Determination of the superiors to pro- 
vide me with a confessor — I finally select one, who is objected to by the au- 
thorities, but is finally conceded tome — My mother sees the pope's nuncio, 
who, on hearing of my case, comes to see me — Conflict with the superiore, 
who, suspecting the means I had employed, himself examines carefully aU my 
dirty clothes, and finds secreted in a towel a letter to my mother, which I had 
placed there on purpose to deceive him— Permission finally from the cardinal, 
at the intercession of the nunci^ is given me to send and receive letters under 
seal — One further application to the pope— Another denial — Contemplate 
flight — Dissuaded from it by my confessor, who advises another petition to 
the pope, which is arranged for — The medical certificate, .... 396 



CHAPTER XXni. 

A BRIEF RESPITE. 

My aunt departs on her mission to Rome — Alarming iUness of my mother — The 
cardinal refuses to allow me to go to see her on her death-bed — Success of my 
attempts in Rome — I determine to leave the diocese of Naples for that of 
Castellamare — The cardinal comes to see me — Interview — Correspondence 
vdth the Bishop of Castellamare — The cardinal's last kick I — Leave the ritiro 
for Castellamare, 433 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

ESPIONAGE. 

The air of freedom — The peasant boy and his caged birds — Lay aside the nun's 
habit, except the veil — Ennuied with this quiet life, determine to return to 
Naples — Secure rooms — A priest assassinates his brother-in-law for some 
difference about thirty ducats, and then commits suicide — This occurring in 
the house where I lived, I feared the police, and moved my quarters — Victor 
Hugo's description of the Neapolitan police — Spies all around me— 1860 — 
Thebegiuurngoftheend 441 



XXXIV CONTEXTS. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

LIBEETY. 

" Italia Una "—The breaking out of the revolution all over Italy— Extracts from 
agreat poem — Francesco II.— Address of a celebrated republican to him — 
September 7, 18C0, in Naples, the day of Garibaldi's public reception — Deposit 
my veil in the altar of San Gennaro — Make the acquaintance of a gentleman 
whom I marry, .461 



MYSTERIES 



NEAPOLITAN CONVENTS. 



CHAPTEE I. 

IKFANCr. 



Birth— My father removes to Bari — Singular event — Eeturn to Naples — Strait- 
ened circumstances — My father appointed Governor of Eeggio — An amusing 
English sea-captain — Voyage to Messina — Keception at Eeggio. 



It is from no desire to boast of a distinguished descent, 
but rather as the duty of narrator, that I state here 
that one of the first and most conspicuous families of 
Naples is .that of Caracciolo, to which I have the honor 
to belong. 

My father was the second son of Genaro Caracciolo, 
Prince of Forino, and was born in 1764. He was des- 
tined for the career of arms (the fortunes of younger 
sons, according to the feudal laws in force, being both 
slender and stinted), and married, in his fortieth year, 
Teresa Cutelli, a young lady of Palermo, who was 
scarcely fourteen years of age at the time. 

I was born Feb. 17, 1821, being the fourth female 

35 



36 KEMOVE TO BARI. 

child, and received the baptismal name of Enrichetta 
(Henrietta), after a paternal aunt, who was a nun, and 
one of the innumerable offerings which our family had 
consecrated to the order of San Benedetto. I was bom 
in our family palace at Naples, a few weeks before Italy 
and Greece, the two cradles of the antique civilization, 
renewed their struggles for national independence ; and 
was only three years of age when my parents removed 
to Bari ; * my father, who at that time held the rank 
of marshal, having been appointed governor of that 
province. 

I remember, distinctly, as if it had occurred yester- 
day, a circumstance which happened to me in that city 
when I was only about three years old. Our ftimily 
had been invited to a masked ball, and, wishing to take 
me with them, dressed me as a little peasant girl. Early 
in the evening I became, of course, very sleepy, and 
my mother, wrapping me up in a shawl, committed me 
into the hands of a servant-man, with instructions to 
carry me directly home and place me in charge of the 
nurse. 

Meanwhile the dancing went on, the excitement, as 
usual, increasing all the time and continuing to a late 
hour without interruption. Scarcely had it concluded, 



* Bari, the second city in importance and in population in the continental por- 
tion of the ex-kingdom of Naples, is the capital of the province of the same name, 
on the Adriatic shore. The province is celebrated for the production of olive-oil 
and almonds ; the larger portion of the latter fruit imported into the United States 
is grown in the proviHce of Bari. • 



SIISrGIII.AE EVENT. 37 

however, when my mother called for the servant to 
inquire if I had waked up on the way home. He was 
not at his post, and no one had seen him return. My 
j)arents were greatly alarmed, of course, and sent imme- 
diately home to inquire what had happened to me and 
to the servant ; but the messenger was told by the nurse 
that she had seen nothing of me, and this greatly in- 
creased their anxiety. My father ran to the house, and 
demanded over and over again of the nurse, with a 
palpitating heart, what had become of me. The poor 
woman could only repeat her reply, that no one had 
been to the house since we left it. 

The agitation and distress of my parents were now 
overwhelming ; and, followed by relatives and friends, 
they left the ballroom immediately to look for me. 
Then commenced a search of indescribable confusion 
and bewilderment, — a continual passing and repassing 
over the same ground, — all in vain. Finally, it was pro- 
posed to change the route, and, having hunted for some 
hours, they came finally upon a low drinking-house, the 
door of which stood ajar, the uproar within betokening 
a debauch. They pushed open the door and found me 
lying upon two chairs, and immersed in the most pro- 
found sleep, whilst the servant had got drunk and was 
clamorously fighting with his companions. The pre- 
cipitation with which my mother seized her lost child 
aroused me. The unusual scene in which I awoke, and 
the cry of my father, as he seized the drunken servant 



38 RETURN TO NAPLES. 

by the throat and hurled him to the floor, made an im- 
pression on me which I can never forget. 
This is the earliest recollection of my life. 

After a residence of four years in Bari, my father 
was suddenly recalled to Naples. The Bourbons were 
accustomed to make use of this mysterious terrorism 
for which the name of the Council of Ten became so 
fearfully celebrated in history. 

Without assigning any reason for it, this capricious 
and unjust government had placed my father on the re- 
tired list, and it was not until some time subsequently 
that he learned that he had been privately accused of 
disaffection. He repeatedly sought an audience of the 
king, but Francesco I., who was then on the throne, 
and not less odious and remorseless than his father, was 
inexorable. My father then sent to my mother, to 
notify her to prepare immediately to return to Naples 
with the family, and directed a friend of his to accom- 
pany us on the journey. Promptly getting everything 
in readiness therefore, we secured our places in the post- 
carriage, which was then the readiest way to make the 
transit. 

We were on the third day of our journey, when my 
mother observed that a ghostly pallor covered the face 
of the friend who accompanied us. She inquired what 
was the matter. He replied that he felt very ill. After 
a few moments he put his head out of the carriage-door, 






STEAITENED CIECUMSTANCES. 39 

and we were greatly shocked to see him vomit torrents 
of blood. 

In this deplorable condition, and under the apprehen- 
sion that his hemorrha2:e mi^ht terminate in death at 
any moment, we were compelled to pursue our way 
until we might arrive at some place where we could 
obtain such aid as his case demanded. Useless, how- 
ever, were all the remedies of the healing art, for the 
unfortunate man died at sunset. 

This catastrophe greatly oppressed our spirits. We 
continued our journey in sadness, and I, although still a 
child, was profoundly grieved. Arriving in Naples, we 
found my father deeply depressed by the wrongs he had 
received at the hands of the government. We were 
advised, on all sides, to implore the sovereign justice, 
and we all went together to throw ourselves at the feet 
of the king ; to no purpose, however, and we were thus 
placed, in a condition but little short of indigence. 

The pay of the retired list, to which my father was 
now reduced, was scarcely sufficient for the most urgent 
necessities of life, for our numerous family. Three 
entire years, however, were passed in these straitened 
circumstances, — three long years of poverty, until 
finally, reinstated in his proper class, he received the 
appointment of Governor of Reggio, a province in Cala- 
bria. 

We secured our passage to Messina in an English 
brig, and were dismayed one day, on receiving notice 



40 AN AJVIUSING ENGLISH SEA-CAPTAIN. 

from the captain that we must embark immediately, 
although a furious gale, accompanited with fearful thun- 
der and lightning, seemed to threaten annihilation to 
every vessel in port. The remonstrances of my parents 
availed nothing with the determined captain, and we 
were therefore obliged to go on board while the rain 
was falling in torrents and the waves on all sides were 
infuriated. 

The determination of the captain to weigh anchor 
during such a furious storm seemed to my parents very 
singular, and, in saying as much to him, the captain 
pointed out to my father on a chart the route of the 
several voyages he was still obliged to make, without 
fail, in order to be in London on the first of January, to 
meet a young girl whom he tenderly loved, and who 
would expect him on that day to Celebrate their wed- 
ding ; and, he added, that if all the elements should 
combine to break loose at the same time against his 
vessel, it should not interrupt his plans ; death alone 
would prevent his marrying the woman he loved on the 
evening of the New Year. 

At this chivalrous explanation the expression on my 
father's face was changed. He laughed, for it seemed 
strange to him that an Anglo-Saxon should speak with 
so much warmth of his love. He still could not help 
being provoked at finding the unreasonable sailor intent, 
from such a caprice, on challenging the elements. But 
there was no remedy ; our luggage was already ou board, 



VOYAGE TO MESSINA. 41 

and, willing or not willing, we were compelled to obey 
the captain's orders. 

I was not yet seven years of age, but from the signs 
which my father and mother exchanged, I distinctly 
understood that they were exceedingly terrified at the 
storm which was raging. The wind was increasing 
fearfully, accompanied by lightning, thunder, and hail. 
I began to cry in chorus with my sisters, and neither 
the caresses of our parents, nor the profiered consola- 
tions of the captain, were able to pacify us. The latter 
tried to induce us to believe, I know not by what kind 
of mixture of heterogeneous phrases, that we were not 
running any danger whatever. 

We had no sooner got out of the bay than we shipped 
a tremendous sea, which threw our vessel completely on 
her beam-ends. Our trunks, which were numerous and 
piled one upon the other, under cover, were upset with 
a horrid crash, and rolled over to the lee side of the 
vessel. It was a critical moment, and, but for the rapid 
movements of the crew in collecting and securing the 
trunks and boxes to iron rings, the ship would inevitably 
have been unable to right herself. 

Our voyage fortunately was a short one. The evening 
of the second day we arrived at Messina. For many 
hours after, our heads were swimming, and it was only 
after a prolonged sleep that we felt ourselves restored to 
the normal condition. 

The following morning another vessel arrived at Mes- 

4* 



42 RECEPTION AT REGGIO. 

sina from Naples. Encouraged by seeing our brig make 
sail, their captain had followed us ; but, less fortunate 
than we, they had been obliged to throw a large part of 
their cargo overboard, and they brought besides, the dead 
body of a woman who had died from fright and sea-sick- 
ness combined. At this news, we thanked God who 
had brought us safely through such great dangers, and 
waited for- favorable weather to cross Over the strait to 
Eeggio. 

Three days subsequently the sun rose in the usual 
splendor of a Sicilian sky, and the sea, perfectly calm, 
promised us a prosperous voyage. We arrived at Reggio 
in a few hours, and were most cordially welcomed by a 
great crowd of citizens who were on the shore waiting 
for us. Four carriages were filled by our family, and 
we were taken to the palace destined for our residence. 

The agreeableness of the place, the cheerfulness of 
the people, and Calabrian hospitality, soon made us for- 
get our sujfferings of the three preceding years, as well 
as the howlmgs of the tempest from which we had just 
escaped. 

So easy is it to dissipate the traces which misfortune 
makes upon us in the days of our childhood ! 

Little did I foresee at this time the woes and tempests 
which awaited me in after life ! 



CHAPTER n. 



EARLY LOVES. 



Carlo My unhappy passion for him — Disappointment and distress at hi3 

marrying another — Visit of Bang Ferdinand to Eeggio —Accident to my 
sister Josephine — Alarming illness of my sister and myself —Domenico. 

Eight years of early life passed by, without the oc- 
currence of anything sufficiently important to be worthy 
of record. The amusements of childhood and the or-' 
dinary studies of that age occupied the day, and in the 
evening there was usually assembled at our house a se- 
lect circle of the officers, civil and military, of the dis- 
trict, as well as of the Calabrians, among whom there 
were, at the time, several literary celebrities. 

In the course of these eight years my three elder 
sisters had married. But one remained at home, 
older than myself by one year, —Josephine, beautiful, 
but unfortunate girl ! She had the form and the heart of 
an angel ! . . . . She is now no more ! Delicate and 
variable to this point had been my own health. Pos- 
sessing a nervous temperament, always pallid, and en- 
dowed with a superabundant and baleful sensibility, I 
gave but little promise of ever arriving at the propor- 
tions of a healthy and strong constitution. Entering as 

43 



44 EAEIiY LOVES. 

I was now upon my fourteenth year, my constitution 
seemed to undergo a very favorable change ; my form 
took an unexpected development ; to pallor succeeded 
vermilion, which seemed more striking than it really 
was, because of the brown color on my cheeks. 

Unfortunately, with the precocious unfolding of the 
body, came that also of the heart. The imperturbable 
serenity of childhood soon disappeared, and with it the 
comforting balsam of sound sleep. I felt a void in my 
mind, — avoid extremely paiuful, — which I desired to fill 
by the attainment of some faintly perceived and inde- 
terminate object, not even in my own mind distinctly' 
defined. A look, or a word, from a young man, was 
sufficient to disturb the regular pulsations of my heart, 
and to make me believe that I had inspired a sentiment 
in another, similar to that which I experienced myself. 
Then would come the disenchantment. That look had 
only been thrown upon me accidentally ; that word only 
pronounced from politeness, the heart having had no 
part in it. 

The training which our mother gave us was rigorous 
in the extreme. She measured the time which it was 
customary for us to enjoy on the terrace, during the 
hour in the afternoon which is devoted all over Italy to 
the jjasseggio (promenade) ; and the slightest transgres- 
sion of her rules was punished with severe castigation. 

But who does not know how rebellious to discij)line 
are the aspirations of a heart at fourteen years of age ? 



CAELO . 45 

" . . . . Ben sa il verchi I'impara 

Com' ho fatt' io con mio grave dolore I "* 

The last of my joyous days expired on that very bal- 
cony. 

Among the crowd of admh-ers who passed in front of 
our house, 1 distinguished a prepossessing young man, 
more intent than any one else in paying me the tribute 
of his admiration. To returii his gaze, to blush and 
feel my heart beat in an unusual manner, were the con- 
sequences. Often during the same day he passed and 
repassed. The languid softness of his eye, his easy 
carriage ; his stature, tall rather than otherwise ; and 
the litheness of his proportions convinced me that he, 
and no other, was the man who had beautified .my 
dreams ; who had become the incarnation of my aspira- 
tions, and I flattered myself that I was the " loadstar " 
to his gaze. 

As he was moving away, one day, I summoned my 
servant, who was a native of Eeggio, and inquired if 
she knew his person or his name, and she replied that 
she knew him very well. 

His name was Carlo , and he was the eldest 

son in a family not rich, but in easy circumstances. 

The image of this handsome young man was ever in 
my mind, invested with ideal forms. The hours of the 
night seemed to me eternal, and the following day 
equally endless ; work was tiresome, and lessons an- 

* Well knows he the truth wholearnsit, as I have learned it with grievous pain. 



46 MY UNHAPPY PASSION FOR HIM. 

noyiDg. I waited with the utmost anxiety for the hour 
to arrive in which permission would be given us to go 
out upon the favorite terrace again, to see the object 
which, since the preceding day, had occupied my 
thoughts. 

Tlie hour finally arrived. I ran to the balcony, and 
inexpressible was my satisfaction to see him at his ac- 
customed post. Our eyes met, and my face was cov- 
ered with blushes. Carlo perceived my embarassment ; 
a slight smile played upon his lips, and, modestly lifting 
his hat, he saluted me. What temerity on my part ! I 
returned his salute, all trembling and confused, and by 
that act I seemed to pass at once from the impersonality 
of childhood to the consciousness of a more expansive 
individuality. 

From that moment I had no more peace of mind. 
The sufferances of lave, especially the first, are enchant- 
ing ; a single moment of happiness compensates for a 
thousand griefs. How man}'- sweet comforts have I not 
drawn from the melancholy strains of Petrarch, which, 
in those days, in the silence of the night, I used to de- 
vour with avidity ! With what sweet inspirations did 
not the overflowing tenderness of "Jerusalem Deliv- 
ered," temper the acerbities of my sufferings ! 

Carlo continued to pass before our house every day. 
A few moments' delay in the time of his arrival, or the 
sudden coming of a rain-storm, or my necessary ab- 
sence from my own post, were sources of great afllic- 



MY UNHAPPY PASSION FOR HIM. 47 

tion to me. To see him, and to be able to return his 
graceful salute ; to exchange, if it were only a single 
glance, not only made me forget all my former suffer- 
ings, but filled me with ineffable felicity. 

In this manner several months passed, during which 
time our communications never went beyond the limits 
of looks and reciprocal salutes. I loved that young man 
with a pure and devoted love, which I f^t to be diffused 
through my whole being, although I was not able, nor 
did I know how to express it. He seemed always anx- 
ious to see me, though not so solicitous, apparently, as 
J;o send a matrimonial embassy to my parents, and he 
appeared rather disposed to hide from them our inno- 
cent but, so far as I was concerned, sincere attachment. 

Opposite to our house there was a palace, the second 
floor of which had, for a long time, been unoccupied. 
One morning I heard a cart stop there, and, raising the 
curtain, I saw porters carrying - furniture into these 
apartments. I returned later to the window, animated, 
I know not by what flattering presentiment ; and — oh, 
what a surprise ! — I saw Carlo on the balcony of that 
house, looking over at me. 

" Can it be, then," I thought, " that he has left his own 
family to be nearer to me ? " I presented myself at the 
window, and Carlo saw ine, smiled, and saluted me. I 
fled for fear my mother would come in ; but happiness 
manifested itself in all my actions, and appeared to me 
to be in the atmosphere I breathed. After dinner, ac- 



48 MY UNELAPPY PASSION FOR HIM. 

cording to custom, I seated myself at the balcouy again. 
Carlo was on his, also. He soon retired into the interior 
of the room, and, by expressive gestures, demanded if I 
loved him. Gazing upon him, smiling and lowering my 
head, I gave him to understand that I did. 

The evening of the same day there was a large num- 
ber of friends assembled in our parlors, and several 
young people, who were sitting near me, began to talk 
of a person whose name had now become very dear to 
me. I listened attentively. They said that he had 
taken a house away from his family, in order to live 
apart from them with his bride. The word bride sur- 
prised me ; and, notwithstanding I used every exertion 
to learn something further, I could gather nothing more 
about him from their discourse. 

My aifection for him increased from seeing him so 
often. I ran to the window frequently, careful alwaj^s 
to avoid the vigilance of my mother, and was very much 
excited with the hope that the bride, of whom I had 
heard speak, was to be no other than myself. 

On Sunday my mother went out early. I opened the 
window as usual, and, seating myself before it, looked 
at Carlo, who, to my eyes, appeared more attractive 
than usual. He, too, seated near his window, made 
signs to me which seemed to show the most ardent af- 
fection. While contemplating him, and filled with the 
delicious flattery that Heaven had not created him for 



MT UNHAPPY PASSION FOR HIM. 49 

any other woman than myself, how many, and what 
projects of future happiness did I not frame ! 

In the heart of the young girl, in her earliest love, is 
there a day more ardently sighed for than the day of her 
nuptials ? 

At this moment the servant entered in great haste, 
and said to me : — 

" Signorina, what are you doing ? Go away from that 
window." 

"Why?" I asked. 

" You are silly to fall in love with this wild youth. 
He is to be married in a few days to another." 

"You must be mistaken," I cried, my face covered 
with a mortal pallor. "You must be mistaken. Who 
has made you believe this story ? " 

And, turning round to him, I asked him by gestures 
if he loved me ; and he replied, apparently in trans- 
ports, and repeatedly, " Yes." 

" See ! " I exclaimed. " See how you have been de- 
ceived ! " 

"No, I am not deceived. You are too young j^'et to 
comprehend the wickedness and* the dissimulation of 
men. It is just as certain that, in less than .a month, 
that hypocrite will marry another woman, as it is that 
to-day is Sunday. My mother has spoken with him on 
the subject. She said to him, 'I thought, Signor Carlo, 
that your bride was to be the young Caracciolo ? ' And 

5 



50 DISTEESS AT HIS MARIIYING ANOTHER. 

ha replied, ' The Caracciolo is very pretty, but she has 
very little dower.' " 

At this I burst into tears. With my handkerchief to 
niy face, I turned to him an interrogative look, full of 
consternation and of sadness. By signs he inquired 
what was the matter with me ; but his conscience, which 
must already have begun to upbraid him, soon revealed 
the truth. 

" Go to your own room, signorina," said the chamber- 
maid to me again ; " it does not become you to look at 
that perfidious youth again." 

Without replying to her, I closed the ill-fated window 
and retired. My heart seemed to be breaking. The 
chambermaid offered me assistance, and I gave myself 
up, finally, a prey to desperation, and shed a torrent of 
bitter tears. 

"Cruel man!" I exclaimed, sighing; "was it not 
enough for you to deceive and then to abandon me ; but 
have you the barbarity, as well, to select for your resi- 
dence a home directly opposite to mine, in order that I 
shall see the woman, who has supplanted ,me in your 
affections, by your side every day?" 

Between frenzy and tears, not a few hours passed 
away. Finally, I endeavored to calm myself so as not 
to attract ray mother's attention on her return home. 
But she, perceiving from my altered looks and swollen 
eyelids that something unusual was the matter with me, 
inquired what had aflected me to such a degree. 



DISTRESS AT HIS MAERYING ANOTHER. 51 

"A terrible headache," I replied. 

This was literally true. The pain I suffered was such 
as to make me sick. In fact, after three lonely days, 
during which I experienced the most bitter suffering, 
and avoided seeing, or showing myself to Carlo, I was 
seized with a gastric bilious fever, which confined me to 
my bed for several weeks. 

The fever did not prevent me, however, from sending 
the servant to the fatal window, from time to time, to 
see what Carlo was doing. She reported that his win- 
dows were closed. I besought her to inform herself, 
from some one of her acquaintance, if the preparations 
for the wedding were progressing, for my love, not less 
ardent than at first, allowed me to hope that the news 
of my illness might restrain the monster from consum- 
mating the contract. The answer that I received was, 
that he now spent the entire day in the house of his 
aflianced, and that in one short week they were to be 
married. 

This news was the last ounce which broke the camel's 
back, and it hurried my desperation to a climax. I cried 
all night, as all young girls are accustomed to cry, who 
acquii-e their first experience of the world through 
deceit. 

Lives there a woman who has never loved ? Such an 
one, were all Plato's philosophy to be infused into her 
mind, would never know either herself or the world. 

The following morning my spirits revived. Upon 



52 VISIT OF KING FERDINAND TO EEGGIO. 

the grave of my early love I laid, with my own hands, 
the tombstone, and engraved on it the word "oblivion." 
May all young girls be enabled to imitate my example, 
or rather may a healthy education preserve them from 
the folly of beholding in every lover a future spouse ! 

The image of Carlo returned no more to my miud, 
except under the semblance of a dramatic personation, 
whose vicissitudes had affected me at the theatre. 

I became finally convalescent. One night, ver}' late, I 
heard the noise of carriage-wheels, which seemed to 
stop at no great distance from our home. 

"Antonina! Antonina ! " I cried, to the servant. 
"What noise is that in the street? It is the bridal 
party, perhaps." 

"Yes, siguorina, it is the bride who has arrived at 
her house, in company with Signor Carlo and their rel- 
atives." 

It was like an electric shock to me. 

" And the wedding, — when did it take place ? " 

"This very evening." 

I laid my head anew ujDon the pillow, and was silent. 
I was already resigned. 

Several months after the facts above narrated took 
place, the city Avas thrown into a great commotion l)y 
the announcement that King Ferdinand was about to 
visit Reggio, on his return from Palermo. 

My father was notified, one morning at daylight, of 



VISIT OF THE KING TO EEGGIO. 53 

the approach of the steamer, on board which was the 
royal party. Dressing himself hurriedly he went at 
once to the place appointed for the reception, attended 
by the principal officials and civilians of the province. 

In the evening, a splendid ball was given to the king 
in the palazzo Eamirez. 

My sister Josephine and myself attended the ball. 
We were dressed simply, but elegantly, in a cherry- 
colored crape, over an under-dress of the same color. 
Our dresses were cut decently low in the neck, and we 
wore golden ornaments. Our hair was dressed in ring- 
lets, a VAnglaise. 

We had been perhaps half an hour in the ballroom 
when the king arrived. My father, who was on the re- 
ception committee, presented us to his majesty. Before 
selecting his. partner for the dance, the king expressed 
the wish to look around the room a few moments. 

"Those two young ladies en cerise, are they your 
daughters, marshal?" dernanded the husband of the 
virtuous Christina, of my father. 

"Majesty, they are." 

" I congratulate you ; they dance beautifully." 

The waltz being concluded, he was solicited to select 
a partner for the quadrille. I saw him direct his looks 
towards me, and inviting me for himself, he pointed out 
my sister Josephine to minister Delcaretto, to form a 
vis-a-vis. 

If Ferdinand 11. had known how to govern his people 
5* 



54 ACCIDEXT TO JOSEPHINE. 

and to treiit them with that chivalrous amiability which 
he knew how to dii^play in the ballroom, who can say 
how much longer Italy might have been obliged to wait 
the day of regeneration? 

Immediately after the ball he left the city. 

Politics was for me, at that time, as well as for most 
others, an uninteresting subject. It was never safe 
during the Bourbon dynasty to talk politics, because of 
the spies who surrounded one on every side ; they were 
never seen, nor could it be discovered who they were, 
yet every word that was uttered was duly reported to 
the government. For these reasons it was a subject 
universally tabooed. 

I remember nothing else of any particular importance 
till the year 1838, except two circumstances which 
occurred in our little family, which I am permitted to 
record. 

There was in the palace in which we lived a small 
chapel, with a grating which opened into the church of 
St. Augustine ; we heard mass and recited our pra^^ers 
there. One day, as Josephine was passing through it, 
a portion of the floor fell, and she fell with it. The poor 
creature was picked up senseless. At the moment, she 
was thought to have received only a slight injury, but 
she was made lame by it, and from its effects ultimately 
died. 



ALARMING ILLNESS. 55 

Another time, on going to the room of my father to 
wish him a "good-morning," as was our custom, I took 
his hand and kissed it reverently. He raised my head, 
and, looking earnestly at me, inquired if I was ill. 

"Not at all," I replied. 

"How, not at all? you are certainly not well." 

" My God ! what do you see ? it is very strange : 1 
certainl}'- feel quite well." 

I went to the looking-glass and there I saw that mf 
face was covered with spots of a lively reddish color. 
He made me sit down by his side, and calling my 
mother's attention to it, she sent at once for the physi- 
cian. But what was our surprise, a moment later, to see 
Josephine come into the room with her face looking 
rather worse than mine. 

It was thought to be the effect of a pill of belladonna, 
which had been administered to us in a drastic dose, for 
a convulsive cough, and had poisoned us. 

The physician was delayed in responding to our call i 
meanwhile our condition was becoming every moment 
more critical. The flush which had at first appeared 
only on our faces was fast spreading over our wholo 
bodies ; a violent palpitation of the heart succeeded, and 
our eyesight became partially obscured. 

The doctor arrived, however, at last, after our waiting 
an hour in the greatest anxiety, and, by administering 
lemon-juice with a great deal of ice, he arrested the 
progress of the poison. 



56 DOilEXICO. 

It was now the month of October. After the tempest 
of grief which I had suffered from the deception of Carlo, 
my heart enjoyed a perfect calm. -I saw him by the side 
of his wife, with the utmost indifference, and she, either 
for effect, or from studied malignity, showered upon 
him the most ardent caresses every time I happened 
to be looking towards them. 

In the mean time, three other children had been born 
into our family, and the care which I was obliged to 
take of them served me for the most agreeable diver- 
sion. 

One evening, my father received the visit of a new 
civil employe, who brought his son with him, who 
seemed scarcely yet to have completed his twentieth 
year. I sjicnt the evening in the saloon with the rest 
of the fuuiiiy. 

The young man's name was Domenico. He kept his 
eyes fixed on me constantly during the entire visit. 
Although he could not be said to be handsome, yet his 
eyes were brilliant, sparkling, and fascinating. 

Was he conscious of this power that he kept them 
fixed upon me so closely ? 

This much I know, that, under the influence of this 
fascination, a restlessness, a singular disturbance, got 
possession of me, which continued to grow upon me. I 
tried to change my position, to converse, to wander 
about, but in vain ; that inexorable look pursued me to 



DOMENICO. 57 

every new place ; it attracted me irresistibly ; it mag- 
netised me. 

The following day I saw him on the public walk, and 
aofain at the theatre in the eveniu2:. Thenceforward I 
could not go out of the house without meeting him ; my 
eye detected him in a crowd with marvellous quickness, 
and, at the sight of him, my heart always beat violently. 
He, on his part, anxious to follow wherever I went, 
allowed no opportunity to escape of making me ac- 
quainted with the sentiment with which I had inspired 
him. 

"Must I believe that the men are all like Carlo?" 
whispered a voice within me, in insinuating tones. "No, 
they are not all of that pattern. If the maxim be true, 
that 'rare is loyalty in love, and few are they who find 
it,' certainly the existence of virtue is demonstrated in 
your own sincerity, and you have only to make a second 
attempt, to find it. Cannot a single look, directed by 
the honest and virtuous motives of one who is sincere, 
be a messenger of love, of compassion, of humanity?" 

Excited again by the imagination, my heart became 
newly inflamed, while reason, subjugated by sentiment, 
was silent, and, stripped of every defence, left the mind 
a prey to the fascinations to which it was exposed. 



CHAPTER in. 

JEALOUSY. 

The three F's — Domenico very attentive — His grandfather demands my hand in 
marriage, from my parents, for liis grandson — They are offended, and Domen- 
ico is prohibited from visiting our house — His terribfejeatousy — My mother's 
anger — Domenico more joatous than ever, and my mother more determined — 
Description of the grand festa of tlie Assumi^tionat Messina — Rupture of the 
relations existing between Domenico and myself— Peace. 

Alluding to the traditional system of depravation 
with which the now fallen tyrants of our peninsula 
denaturalized the customs of their subjects, the most 
acute and most subtle of German critics, recently de- 
ceased, has said that Rossini was the only statesman of 
Italy. 

Heine thus defines the instincts of the Latin race, 
with a profundity which he failed to employ in the exam- 
ination of the German character. He lived in Naples, 
and studied in its vicinity the universal predominance of 
melomania among the Neapolitans. 

It was said, too, that with three F's, a prince, a pupil 
of Machiavelli, might govern, comme il faut, the pcoj)le 
of meridional Italy. Festa (holiday) , Farina (flour) , 
and i^orca (the gibbet) ; the first, to favor the nobles ; the 
second, the lazzaroni ; and the third, for the moustaclied 
68 



THE THEEE f'S. 59 

liberals. Of farina, there was sometimes a scarcity ; 
but with the festa and the gibbet they diverted the 
Neapolitans without stint. 

The festa, the primordial and essential element of the 
Bourbon system of government, is divided into two 
kinds : the religious festa, and the political, or profane, 
festa. The former are numerous, and established by 
precepts of the church ; on these days, mechanics 
and laboring men are prohibited from work, a mass ij* 
said in the morning, and then there is a procession of 
priests and acolytes, with military and a band of music, 
which passes through the principal streets of the city, 
finishing in the square, about noon, with the discharge oi 
a sort of feu-de-joie and fireworks. The afternoon m 
devoted to amusements and wine-drinking. The usual 
political festa difiers from the above only by the absence 
of the priests and their procession. [The National 
Festa of Italy, which occurs on the first Sunday in June, 
is but a repetition of the American Fourth of July.] 

Under the old Bourbon government there were gala 
days on which, if the prince danced in his palace, every 
faithful subject, unless he were a reverend, or gouty, 
was obliged to put his legs in motion. In the last days 
of the carnival, when His Majesty, having donned his^ 
mask and costume, mounted his gilt car and scattered, 
with a profuse hand, to the right and to the left, along 
the Toledo, under the form of confectioner}^, the riches j 
of his royal munificence, it was deemed an honor for 



GO DOilENICO VERY ATTENTIVE. 

eveiy devoted and loyal subject to receive iu his face at 
least one discharge of that grape shot, iu commemora- 
tion of that bombardment which saved Naples the throne 
and the altar from the pest of liberalism ! aud bon toiiy 
iu the provinces, consisted in servilely imitating the 
depravation of the metropolis. 

The Calabrian youth, naturally lively, but infected, 
also, with the fatuity which varnished over the iron rule 
of the government, were now entirely occupied with the 
preparation of their costumes for the great carnival sea- 
son of 1839. 

Domenico did not fail to come to our house every 
evening, where we had, at this season, music aud danc- 
ing. Is it possible to listen to the mass without the 
organ, or to assemble at the evening party without the 
mtervention of the piano-forte ? 

My mother knew of the attentions which this young 
man was showing me, and she reproved me sharply for 
having countenanced them. On that account, I could 
not raise my eyes to look at him without first being well 
assured that her attention was otherwise occupied. I 
was thus compelled to do that which I knew to be con- 
traband, and it weighed heavily on my conscience ; but 
I was unable to see any means of escape. 

Domenico abstained from approaching me openly, and 
also from selecting me for a partner in the dance. This 
mask of delicacy was the source of much sadness to 
him, which seemed to me an index of the sincerity of 



DOMENICO VERY ATTENTIVE. 61 

the affection which he had for me, aucl, what was more, 
he had never breathed to me a word of love, as was the 
common custom. But I have ah^eady observed, as the 
result of my experience, that love, expressed by ges- 
tures, is not always either veracious or stable. 

The last evening of the carnival there were so many 
persons assembled in our rooms who were masked, as is 
the custom at this season, that we were compelled to 
open other rooms to accommodate them. During the 
evening a domino approached me, and, handing me 
some confectionery, something, I knew not what at the 
moment, fell into my lap. I picked it up. It was under 
an envelope. I was careful to conceal it in my hand- 
kerchief, and, as soon as an opportunity occurred, I went 
to my own room, where I opened it, as one may readily 
believe, with my thoughts fixed on Domenico. There 
were enclosed a large sugar heart, and a little billet, 
which read as follows : — 

" I love thee, dear Enrichetta, — I love thee ! Promise 
me only fidelity, and I swear that thou shalt be mine ! 

" DOIIENICO." 

Hiding the note in my palpitating bosom, and proud 
of the inappreciable treasure, I returned to the ball- 
room, feeling quite sure that, among the crowd present, 
there was not a happier woman than I. 

I found him again at one of the doors, where he was 



62 MY HA^D DEMANDED IN MARRIAGE. 

feiguiug to arrange his mask. My mother, who had 
not recognized him under that disguise, had no apparent 
reason to be suspicious. 

I stopped on the threshold of the door, and, bending 
his knee to the floor, and seizing my hand, he imprinted 
an ardent kiss upon it. Either fiK)m emotion, or from 
the fear of being surprised, we were both speechless. 
He released me, and I fled. 

A few days subsequently, his grandfather presented 
himself to my parents and demanded my hand in mar- 
riage for his grandson. They inquired why the father 
of Domenico had not come himself, to prefer this re- 
quest, as was customary ; and the grandfather frankly 
told them that Domeuico's father was not satisfied with 
the match, having intended to give his son another wife ; 
but that he, the grandfather, moved by the entreaties of 
the grandson, who was his heir, also, had determined to 
take this step himself, in the hope that his sou would 
finally give his consent also. 

The equivocal conclusion, united to the strong antip- 
athy which my mother entertained for Domenico, induced 
them to say, in reply to the grandfather, that, without 
the approbation of the young man's father, they would 
never give their consent ; and if, hereafter, Domenico 
should approach their daughter, on this subject, she 
would be confined to her own room. 

Neither my father nor my mother made me acquainted 
with the fact of this meeting, nor with the nature of the 



REFUSAL OF MY PARENTS. 63 

business discussed there. I knew it, however, through 
one of Domenico's friends. 

In the evening he was, of course, very sad, and, for 
fear of being entirely excluded from our house, he used 
all his efforts to avoid noticing me. As time went on, 
his sadness increased, until, finally, his father, in order 
to divert him from the passion which was consuming 
him, determined to send him to Naples. 

Domenico was alarmed at this disagreeable announce- 
ment, and burst into tears. He supplicated and im- 
plored his father to revoke the fatal order, and used all 
other means which love could suggest. But his father 
remained inexorable, so that, after the youth had ex- 
hausted the most affectionate prayers, he rose and 
retired to his own room, where, for two days, he abso- 
lutely refused to come out of it, and declined all food, 
until he had the assurance of his mother, that he should 
be permitted to remain in Eeggio. 

It was at this time only that I saw him again. But 
how pale and wan he had become ! Love, however, is 
said to feed on grief, takes pleasure in affliction, and is 
comforted at the sight of tears. I thanked him for the 
patience with which he had suffered for love of me, with 
a sad smile ; and he, in a similar manner, replied to me, 
and thus we buried our troubles in oblivion. 

" Pieni dell' ineffabile dolcezza 
D'un comune pensier ch' altri non scerse." * 

• Full of the ineffable sweetness of a common thought, which others could not see. 



64 DOMENICO'S TERRIBLE JEALOUSY. 

For some time past, I had had occasion to observe 
that Domenico was of a very jealous disposition. If 
any young man happened to sit near me for a single 
moment, or in a low tone of voice addressed me a single 
innocent word, his face would change color and his eyes 
would pass instantly from their ordinary expression to 
one wonderfully ferocious, while the motion of his lips 
would indicate a reproof. This disposition of his was a 
source of torture to me, from the impossibility of com- 
municating with him, it being almost impossible for me 
to receive a letter from him without being detected ; 
and more difficult still, on account of the surveillance of 
my mother, for me to find an opportunity to answer one. 
In one of these ill-fated days of his paroxysms of mel- 
ancholy, only too frequent in the Calabrian character, 
Domenico took his hat and left our house, and did not 
show himself again for many days. 

Reproved by his friends and confidants for the base- 
ness of his suspicions, he returned to announce to me 
that he had become convinced of his fimlt; he seated 
himself upon a chair, upon one of the rounds of which I 
had already placed my feet, and commenced a familiar 
conversation, certain that the presence of my mother 
would save him from the accusation of attempting to 
show au}^ particular attention to me. 

But she was only seeking a pretext to separate us, 
and it seemed a sufficient cause to her, that I should 
have in some way disobeyed her orders. After the com- 



MY mother's AjSTGER. 65 

panyhad all gone away, she ordered me to follow her to 
her own room, after a few minutes. 

When I arrived there I found her in bed. Long and 
bitter were her exhortations. She thought me intracta- 
ble, because I persisted in loving a man whom neither 
she nor my father was willing that I should ever marry. 
She said that she had perceived that he was of a very 
jealous disposition, and that his jealousy was the occa- 
sion of great unhappiness to me ; and she concluded by 
saying, that it was time now to discontinue it, for both 
she and my father had become tired of it. His having 
sat down by my side, notwithstanding her prohibition, 
presented a propitious occasion to cut short, definitively, 
the further progress of this foolish love ; and to make 
sure of this, I received orders not to make my appear- 
ance again in the saloon of an evening, but to confine 
myself to my own room. 

I was not ignorant of the firmness of my mother's 
resolution. I retired from her room trembling, and 
hurried to Josephine, who was waiting for me, impatient 
to know the issue of the maternal lecture. This dear 
sister was my consolatory angel. She made me seat 
myself, for she perceived that it was only with difficulty 
that I was able to support myself upon my feet, and 
then questioned me ; but I was unable to answer. I 
hastened to undress myself, assisted by the servant, and 
went to bed, into which I had no sooner entered than I 
was seized with one of those nervous attacks to which 
6* 



66 TREATMENT OF DOMENICO. 

I have always been subject, and which have so fre- 
quently nearly cost me my life. 

They used smelling-salts and other odors to relieve 
me. My bosom was panting, my throat parched, and 
a very strong chill made me shake violently on the bed. 
After an hour or so, tears came to my relief and made 
their way in copious quantities down niy cheeks. 

My father, who was naturally endowed with an incom- 
parable gentleness, had abandoned to his wife, entirely, 
the government of his daughters, and never, in any 
respect, opposed her, believing her entirely qualified for 
the duty. He knew, of course, what had occurred, and 
approved of the sentence which excluded Domenico from 
our society, while the latter, ignorant of it all, omitted 
no opportunity of coming to our house in the evening as 
usual. He noticed my absence, but at first supposed 
that some household cares prevented me from appearing 
in the parlor. Meanwhile time ran on, and seeing me 
no more, he began to suspect the reason and was much 
distressed. 

He first approached my father, who, being incapable 
of using any one uncivilly, treated him as usual. He 
then paid his respects to my mother, but was chilled by 
her severity towards him, which he had not noticed 
when he first entered the room. He then waited anx- 
iously for an opportunity to speaik to Josephine, who at 
that moment was engaged in conversation \vith some of 
her own particular friends. 



DOMENICO'S EESOLUTION. 67 

"Is Signorina Enrichetta ill?" lie inquired, Tvlieu he 
got an opportunity to gain her ear. 

"Yes," she replied, for she saw mother watching her. 

"But only yesterday she was quite well?" 

Josephine was silent. After a long pause, Domenico 
added : — 

" This change of manner towards me on the part of 
your mother is very strange. Tell me, signorina, I ask 
you as a favor, does your sister's illness proceed from 
her sitting a few minutes beside me yesterday evening ? " 

"I believe so." 

" Good God ! It seems to me your mother must have 
wanted an excuse to separate us. Our conversation was 
certainly very innocent, and, besides, was all Held in 
her presence. I know not to. what else to attribute the 
singularity of her conduct towards me." 

The young man sighed, and continued : — 

" Well. I will not come here any more. Your 
mother's commands shall be obeyed. Pray, however, 
assure your sister that nothing shall change my affection 
for her." 

He then arose, and, without taking leave of any one, 
or even looking at anybody, took up his hat and left the 
room. 

Fatal evening of my life I The remembrance of it 
will never be obliterated from my mind ! 

Separation only served to irritate more and more the 



(J8 D03HENIC0 MOEE JE^VLOUS THAN EVER. 

furious jealousy of Domeuico. Througli his frieud, he 
assured me that if I wished to give him a proof of my 
love for him, I must absolutely abstaiu from dancing 
with any one. 

Nothing could be more conformable to my own wishes, 
and I gave the required pledge. 

One evening I was seated at the piano playing for the 
others to dance a quadrille. My mother j^pproached me 
and demanded, angrily : — 

" Why do you refuse to dance ? " 

"I do not feel well." 

"What do you wish me to understand, my child? 
Plere I am not to be deceived ; it must be because of 
some silly prohibition of your lover." 

" I assure you that — " 

"Enough. I will not permit such caprices. . . . Get 
up and dance the next set." 

I was obliged of course to obey ; but I went through 
the quadrille in a state not far short of delirium. 

My mother's severities did not end here. Knowing 
that Domenico was lurking about the house to watch the 
steps of those who visited us, and to ascertain if among 
them there might not be, perhaps, some rival, I was 
directed not to go near any window, except those in the 
rear of the house, which did not open on any street. 

If the imposition of such restrictions had for its effect 
to foment, even to a state of frcnzj^ the naturally cap- 
tious humor and passion of that gloomy youth, I, on my 



FESTA OF THE ASSUMPTION. 69 

part, found myself in one of those cruel alternatives 
from which it was next to impossible to escape serious 
difficulty. 

In connection with this subject, there happened at this 
time an event, which I ought not to pass over in silence. 

Messina — a beautiful cit}^, situated as every one 
knows on the island of Sicily, nearly opposite to Keggio," 
and only a few miles distant, from which it is separated 
only by that strait, which in a storm will make the face 
of the most experienced pilot turn pale — is accustomed 
to celebrate, with solemn pomp, the festa in honor of 
the assumption of the Virgin, for four successive days, 
beginning on the 12th and terminating on the 15 th of 
August. 

This celebration is a singular mixture of the sacred 
and the profane ; of Christianity and idolatry ; of Euro- 
pean and of savage customs. It always attracts many 
people from all the neighboring places as well as from 
the Calabriau provinces. 

Two enormous figures of horses, made of pasteboard, 
on which are two giants, made of the same material, 
are placed in the piazza of the arcivescovado. Two men 
of the common people are then covered with a camel's 
skin, in such a way as to represent that animal to a cer- 
tain extent ; this skin is called by the Messiueso blessed 
(I don't know wh}^) , and this supposed animal then goes 
around among the store-keepers of the city soliciting 



70 TESTA or THE ASSUIVIPTION. 

goods to pay the expenses of the festa. Into the open 
mouth of the begging quadruped these contributions are 
thrown and the goods are subsequently converted into 
money. 

The most imposing part of the solemnity consists in 
the procession, which passes through the principal streets 
of the city and is preceded by an enormous bara (car) 
oJrawn by a long team of buffaloes, on which is erected 
a series of wheels, horizontally arranged, one above 
the other, — large at the bottom and diminishing in size 
as they ascend, — which are put in rotatory motion, and 
on them are placed figures made to symbolize the 
heavenly bodies, as the sun, the moon, and the stars. 

Beautifully and sumptuously adorned is this machine, 
built and put in motion in honor of Iler who gave^ birth 
to the God of charity ! But in realit}^, it reminds one 
rather of the furious car of Juggernaut, or the execrable 
hecatombs of the Druids ; and at the sight of it, with 
its living, innocent victims, immolated on its bosom, 
one's heart is shocked and it is impossible to abstain 
from crying out against such barbarities. 

On the extreme raj^s of the sun and the moon, and on 
the extreme rims of the wheels, suckling infants are 
bound, whose unnatural mothers are induced in this vile 
way to gain a few ducats, which are paid them, for the 
use of their babies, by the impresario of the spectacle ; 
the children are designed to symbolize the angels Avho 
accompany the Virgin on her way to heaven. These 



FESTA OF THE ASSUMPTION. 71 

innocent little creatures — not otherwise culpable, save 
for being born of such, inhuman mothers, and for having 
unfortunately come into the world in a country not yet 
sufficiently civilized — are taken down from the fatal 
wheel at the conclusion of the parade, many of them 
either dead or dying, after having been kept revolving 
in the air for seven long hours ! 

At the termination of the festa, more properly of the 
sacrifice, the mothers come running in crowds and howl- 
ing and crowding each other, this one beating that, and 
all impatient to learn, from actual examination, whether 
their own children are alive or dead. 

Then begins a scene of a different kind, which is 
sometimes only concluded by an effusion of blood. It 
not being easy for a mother to recognize her own child 
among the survivors, the one disputes with the other 
for the fruits of her own womb ; while the imprecations 
of the disputants and the lamentations of the most 
agonized are mixed up with the deafening derisions of 
the spectators, and the hissing of the mob. Those of 
them who happen to belong to the church return to 
their own homes deprived of their children, and con- 
sole themselves, under .the instructions of their priests, 
with the thought that the Virgin, fascinated with these 
prepossessing little angels, has taken them with her to 
Paradise. Convinced of this, they regale themselves on 
their ill-gotten gains, feasting with their feminine friends 
until the money received from the impresario for the 



72 FESTA OF THE ASSUMPTION. 

lives of their children, is entirely squandered; not 
doubting but what they will obtain from the priest 
further succor in memory of their little angels who have 
so gloriously found their way into heaven. 

[We take the following description from the Messina 
correspondent of an Italian journal, published in August, 
1865: — 

" The 15th August passed away and Messina has not 
had this year, a single ceremony with which the popula- 
tion is accustomed to solemnize the festival of the 
Virgin. The sanitary authorities have forbidden all 
extraordinary gatherings of the people, therefore the 
camel, the promenade of the giants, and even the 
Bara must be postponed to some more fortunate year. 
But what is the Baraf 

"It is a sledge on which is a circular platform, and in 
its centre a tomb with the mortal remains of the Virgin, 
surrounded by all the apostles, prophets, many priests, 
and angels. There is a cloud with vaporous globes kept 
in motion by an engine, which serves as a pavilion over 
it ; on the cloud there is a globe representing the world, 
with the sun at the right-hand side, the moon on the left, 
and a smaller cloud above it. Christ is standing on this 
cloud, holding in his right hand the soul of the Virgin 
flying to heaven. All this summed up gives a colossus 
fifteen metres high. Everything is in motion in this* 
holy machinery ; the apostles revolve around the dead 



TESTA OF THE ASSUJMPTION. 73 

Virgin; so do the prophets, the angels, the sun, the 
moon, the cloud, the whole world ; and, above all, what 
turns quicker than anything else are the brains of the 
inhabitants, so enthusiastic at the strange spectacle. 
The angels are represented by nearly a hundred babies. 
Christ is represented by a young man ; the soul of the 
Virgin by a fair girl dressed in white, and sending 
blessings to the people from that height. An immense 
quantity of iron is necessary to keep together all the 
moving pyramid, and to keep safely so many persons 
and babies placed in such difficult positions. This whole 
apparatus passes through the main street of Messina 
without any difficulty, drawn by thousands of arms, 
as everybody puts his hand to the ropes attached to the 
•-Sara."] 

The time for this celebration, I said, was approaching ; 
a manifestation of one of the aforesaid Bourbon F's. 
A large party of our friends agreed, together with my 
father and mother, to pay Messhaa a visit. In all, we 
numbered forty persons, and one large house was secured 
there sufficient to accommodate us all. 

I was very much distressed, imaginiug the anger which 
the announcement of such an amusement would occasion 
to Domenico ; for into our party several young men had 
insinuated themselves, of whom he felt a very unjust, 
but harassing, jealousy. There was one among them 
who, ignorant of the relations which subsisted between 

7 



74 VISIT TO MESSINA. 

US, had confided to Domenico, himself, the secret of 
his own preference for me. As soon as Domenico 
learned of this project, he abandoned himself to the 
most absurd frenzy, and, by his usual messenger, caused 
me to understand that, if I should go to Messina, he 
would commit suicide. In vain his friend Paul told 
him that he was exacting from me that which I was 
unable to compl}'^ with ; it not being presumable tluit 
my parents would go to Messina and leave me at home, 
nor would I, besides, be expected to struggle against 
their commands. He finally succeeded in persuading 
him by these and other arguments, promising him 
besides, that he would stay by my side during the whole 
time, and that he would give me his arm in our walks, so 
that no one else should have a chance to approach me ; 
and, further, he swore to him, in the name of the friend- 
ship which bound them, frankly and sincerely, that at 
his return, he would give him an account of my conduct 
towards all his imaginary rivals. 

Eeassured by these promises of his friend, he pre- 
ceded us by several hours in the passage, so that, on 
our arrival in Messina, I saw him standing on the Molo 
waiting for us. He followed us at a distance, and finding 
out where we lodged, installed himself in a cafe from 
which, without being seen by my mother, he could see 
the balconies of our house. 

Paul maintained his promise faithfully ; he stationed 
himself by my side and followed me like my shadow, 



PLOTS AT MESSmA. 75 

making of his body an insurmountable barrier between 
me and any person who might attempt to approach me. 

I was much in hopes that the whole affair would pass 
over without any unpleasant occurrence. Unfortunately 
it did not. 

It was nine o'clock one evening when Paul told me 
that he must go out for a few minutes to procure some- 
thing of which he was much in need. 

"Be quick, Paul, for mercy's sake," I said to him; 
"you know that at ten o'clock we must go with our 
party to the Exchange." 

"Yes," he replied; "but there is an hour yet, and I 
only ask a few moments." 

Sajdng this he departed. 

He had had hardly time to get into the street when 
my mother ordered Josephine and myself to make our- 
selves i;eady to go out. 

" But how shall we do ? " I asked, " since at ten o'clock 
we have to go to the Exchange, by appointment?" 

" We are going around the streets a little first to see 
the illumination." 

" We are not all here," I added; "we miss yet some 
of our party." 

" Those who are not here now, can join us," she re- 
plied, in a tone which admitted of no dispute. 

I was silenced, and slowly as possible I made the 
necessary preparations, with the hope that Paul might 
return in season to give me his arm. 



70 EUPTXJEED RELATIONS. 

My mother, Josephine, and the others were ready be- 
fore me and were waiting for me to join them. I tore 
a button off my glove and prayed for time to sew it on 
again. 

"Useless," said my mother, angrily ; "here is a pin, 
make that serve instead of a button." 

I took the pin and followed the party, looking 
anxiously all the time for the return of Paul. 

A voice accosted me as follows : — 

" Signorina, as your cavalier is absent, will you accept 
of my arm in place of his ? " 

I looked up and found that it was the young man who 
had told Domenico of his preference for me. O God ! 
what an embarrassment ! How could I get rid -of him ? 
I was in doubt Avhether to accept, or rudely refuse. INIy 
mother was watching me closely, and several other i)cr- 
sons of the party heard the offer. . 

Urbanity, confusion, and fear combined, prevailed. 
I took his arm diiSdently, as though I feared some con- 
tagion, and walked without saying a word. 

At the corner of the street who should I see, notwith- 
standing the immense crowd of people, but Domenico 
himself. He came up to my side with a deathly pallor 
on bis cheeks, and looking like an infuriated vampyre. 

He turned an evil eye first on my compauion and then 
on me, as though he would destroy me ; at the same 
time pronouncing some unintelligible words. 

I screamed. The noise of the streets fortunately pre- 



EUPTUEED RELATIONS. 77 

vented its being heard, except by those nearest us. 
Meanwhile, we had separated from Domenico, and as 
we were going in different directions, he took his own 
way and we ours. My fears were not quieted, how- 
ever ; for I knew his impetuous character, and feared 
that he might return with some weapon of death and 
attempt either my life, or that of the poor youth at my 
side. 

I was a little quieted only when we reached the Ex- 
change. Entering the large saloon, I told Paul, who, 
in the mean time had come up, to follow me on to the 
balcony, and there I narrated to him what had happened ; 
at which he appeared to be much grieved, and said that 
he would immediately make the necessary explanations 
to Domenico, and establish my innocence with him. 

Those who have been in love will be able to compre- 
hend my present condition. I loved Domenico dearly, 
and was, moreover, very careful not to give him the 
slightest motive for jealousy, — and all the time I ap- 
peared to him as a frivolous and inconstant woman. 

At dawn of the following morning we began our 
preparations for our return voyage, and in a few hours 
we were in Eeggio. 

Pawl came in the evening, very early, as usual. I 
asked him, by signs, if he had seen Domenico, and he 
replied, in the same manner, that he had. 

He told me, a little later, that Domenico's fury had 
driven him to the verge of desperation. He had re- 

7* 



78 RUPTURED RELATIONS. 

solved to cut off all relations, whatsoever, with me, 
forever, and had promised his father that he would go 
to Naples without any further delay. His word was 
already pledged to that effect and he could not retreat. 

Notwithstanding the sharp reproofs of Paul and the 
explanations given him of my behavior exercised a bene- 
ficial influence on his spirits, he was for from re- 
penting of the step he was about to take and which had 
been determined upon in a moment of rage. 

I arose, unable to restrain the emotion which the 
words of Paul had produced on me and, retiring to a 
quiet corner of the room, meditated for a few moments. 
Then recovering myself, I returned to my seat which 
I had left by the side of the confidant of my sufferings : — 

"A last favor I have to ask of you," I said, with a 
firm voice. "Do me the favor to see Domenico again, 
if for nothing else than to say to him, in my name, that 
I am the only party who has any right to be offended 
in this affair. He can go away, or stay in Reggio, as 
he pleases. I shall take no further notice of him, 
knowing myself to be entirely innocent of the fault he 
attributes to me. He will find in Naples, perhaps, a 
woman who will be more faithful to him than I have 
been." 

From that moment, true to the resolution I had 
taken, and strong in my loyalty to it, I showed in every 
possible way, by my actions, that I was determined to 
detach myself from him ; but he, sincerely repentant, 



CONFESSION AND PEACE. id 

had already recommenced his accustomed promenades 
under our windows. 

It was Sunday, and the day fixed for his departure 
for Naples was the following Tuesday. 

As I have already said, there was, in our house, a 
small chapel, which opened into the church of San Au- 
gustine. Here, while I was listening to the mass, I dis- 
covered Domenico opposite to me. After the mass was 
finished, I was about to retire; but, to a pathetic 
appeal which he made to me, by signs, asking me to re- 
main a moment, I had the weakness to listen. After all 
the people had left the church he approached the grat- 
ing, and, joining his hands, in a supplicating manner, 
said to me : — 

"Forgive me ; I confess my fault." 

I looked at him ; the expression on his face was such 
as to disarm the strongest resentment ; with tears in my 
eyes, I replied : — 

" Cruel man ! the day after to-morrow you go away ; 
abandon me ; and now you ask my pardon ! " 

'^By this sacred place in which we are," he added, "I 
swear that in one mouth I will return to you, notwith- 
standing the orders of my father, who wishes me to 
remain away a whole year." 

"I accept your pledge ; and, on this condition, I for- 
get your outrages." 

We heard some one cough near us, and were admon- 



80 CONFESSION AND PEACE. 

ished by that, that we might have listeners, aucIDomen- 
ico said " Adieu " hurriedly. 

"Adieu," I responded, in a voice suffocated by emo- 
tion. 

As he was passing out of the church door, he turned 
round, and said : — 

" Do not deceive me ! " 

Deceive him ! What object could I have to do that, 
now that he had renewed his vows to me ? "What better 
fortune could I desire ? 



CHAPTEE IV. 



Earthquake at Reggio — "We fly for safety to the piazza — Meet Domenico — His 
interview and reconciliation with my mother — He goes to Naples — We return 
to our house — Sudden illness of my father — His death. 



The era of peace had rekindled the tender passion in 
both our hearts. On Monday, Domenico passed many- 
times under my window. I readily distinguished his 
steps ; and, when I was certain of not being discovered 
by my mother, I ran to the window to salute him ; and 
it was already midnight before we retired. 

I went to bed very much distressed, and remained a 
long time unable to sleep. After an hour, I was startled 
by a terrible noise, which seemed like the roaring of an 
earthquake, and which frightened me terribly. I raised 
myself in bed, and, turning round, attempted to sit up, 
but another heavier shock threw me over. 

With the oscillations, the creaking of the windows, 
and the ringing of the bells in the house, every one was 
awakened. Josephine jumped out of bed, and I fol- 
lowed her, with a weak and uncertain step, to the room 
of our parents, who, meeting us by the way, directed 
us to dress ourselves as quickly as we could ; for that 



82 EARTHQUAKE AT EEGGIO. 

we must all go immediately and seek refuge in the open 
air, in* the grand piazza, which was near to our house. 
Another shock, stronger than the preceding, terrified 
us still more. My mother took one of the little chil- 
dren in her arms, and I seized the other, which, in the 
street, I was obliged to consign to a servant, in order to 
arrange my disordered dress. 

My hair was very long. The tresses, flowing loosely, 
fell in disorder over my shoulders. I felt some one 
take hold of my hair, and, turning round, found Do- 
menico, who whispered in my ear : — 

"God bless the earthquake, which has afforded me 
the happiness of seeing you again, and of once more 
saying adieu ! " 

" Will you return soon ? " 

"Yes, dear; I will only stay in Naples a month." 

The firm tone in which this promise was uttered was 
in striking contrast to the trembling of the earth on 
which we stood, under the influence of the tremendous 
phenomena which was agitating it at that moment. 

The people all fled from their houses, for safety, into 
the open air. The great noise which was made by the 
toppling over of the chimneys on the roofs of the 
houses, the howling and barking of the dogs, and the 
crowing of the cocks were deafening ; even the birds, 
alarmed by the fearful commotion, abandoned their 
nests, and, flying back and forth over our heads, ut- 
tered the most piercing lamentations. It was, in short, 



mXEEVIEW WITH DOMENICO. 83 

a scene of confusion, of universal terror, and of desola- 
tion, the remembrance of which will never be effaced 
from my mind. 

Domenico approached my father and saluted him. 
He received him politely, and they talked together for 
nearly an hour, during which time the shocks of the 
earthquake succeeded each other incessantly. Being 
obliged to set out, however, before sunrise, and seeing 
daylight about to break in the east, he took my hand 
and kissed it, and then took a respectful leave of my 
father. Passing in front of my mother, he saluted her. 
She spoke to him, and inquired : — 

"Is it true, Signor Domenico, that you are about to 
leave us ? " 

"In half an hour I must embark, signora. I go 
hence in pursuance of orders from my father ; but, God 
willing, I shall return not later than a month heuce. 
Then, either with or without his consent, by the aid of 
my grandfather, I shall again demand the hand of your 
daughter. I hope you will not refuse your consent any 
longer, seeing that no opposition is likely to diminish 
the ardent love which we entertain for each other." 

"Very well," answered my mother s "on your return 
we will talk further about it." 

She gave him her hand, which he reverently kissed, 
and said : — 

"Mother, dear, be merciful." 

She smiled, and he went away contented. 



84 RETURN TO OUR HOUSE. 

Tears bathed my cheeks, and my distraction took 
away the power of speech. I confided to the charity 
of looks the pathetic message which the tongue refused 
to articulate. As long as we could, we kept our eyes 
fixed on each other, and when he disappeared . from 
sight, still, by favor of the sense of hearing, I recog- 
nized his receding footsteps. 

I believe that every one has, in the course of his or 
her life some inauspicious date, some critical event, 
some sinister recollection, from which may be dated a 
series of uninterrupted disasters. The unlucky hour of 
my life, was, by the horoscope, cast in the middle of 
that frightful night, in which the earthquake menaced the 
destruction of Reggio and the other cities of Calabria. 

Other griefs I had not experienced, till now, than 
those which are common to maidenly experience ; and 
every one knows the secret compensations hy which 
these disappointments are tempered. Henceforward, 
however, every joy is subdued, the heavens are over- 
cast, and the laugh is no longer for me. From this 
point begins my dolorous story. 

Inde lachrymce. 

Apprehensive of further disasters from the earth- 
quake, we did not venture to return to the house until 
the evening of the sixth day ; and not even then because 
we felt that the danger was at an end, but because my 



ILLNESS OF MY FATHER. 85 

father was already suffering in his health from this long 
exposure, and was threatened with more serious illness. 

I loved, I adored my father, with a degree of tender- 
ness unusual. I loved him. more than I did my mother, 
and for very good reasons. There are parents who are 
not content with manifesting unjust predilections in 
favor of one or more children, but they also have the 
imprudence to make incautious exhibitions of such pref- 
erences. My mother, I am grieved to say, was not 
exempt from this weakness. I know not from what 
instinct, but she was prone to these domestic prefer- 
ences, and took no pains whatever to conceal them from 
those who did not happen to share her favors. Now, 
among the number of those who were her favorites, my 
name was not found, certainly ; and no day passed in 
which some new proofs of it were not distinctly shown. 
My fiither, in compensation for this want of maternal 
affection, redoubled his own. 

On the evening of September 21, I was seated at the 
piano, endeavoring to divert him, and was singing 
an air from "Norma" which he was fond of. I heard a 
deep-drawn sigh. I supposed some unpleasant thought 
had intruded itself upon his mind, and continued to 
sing. 

A second sigh, followed by a subdued prayer, ar- 
rested my attention. 

I arose quickly, and, approaching him, inquired what 
disturbed him so much. 



86 ILLNESS OF MY FATHER. 

" It is not that," said he ; "but I feel ill, and I am sorry 
that I am unable to take you to the theatre, to-night, as 
I promised." 

" What do you say ? Is it for this you grieve ? Then 
I shall lay aside my preparations, and all desire to go 
to the theatre." 

I called Josephine and my mother. He said to the 
latter that he had felt himself seriously ill since noon, 
and that he believed that his sufferings were symptoms 
of approaching death. 

We led him to his room, our hearts almost breaking 
at this announcement, and sent immediately for the 
physician. The next day, a consultation of doctors was 
held, and they declared that his disease was inflamma- 
tion of the bowels. At the fourth day, the physicians 
had but little hope left of his recovery ; and at the 
seventh, having announced that all their remedies had 
failed to afford any relief, it became necessary that the 
last comforts of religion should be speedily admin- 
istered. 

No one who has not been left an orphan in early life 
can comprehend the violence of my grief, or of my de- 
spair at this announcement ; for I was about to be be- 
reaved of a parent on whose affection all my present 
and future happiness was centred. 

The melancholy services — extreme unction — being 
finished, we returned to his room. We found him 



ILLNESS OF JilY FATHER. 87 

lying upon his right side, with his back towards the 
door by which we had entered. 

My face was disfigured by crying. The nurses made 
signs to me not to come near him, and I sat down near 
the door, and endeavored to restrain my tears. 

A distressing silence reigned within the room, inter- 
rupted only by the painful respirations of my father. 
His eyelids, which had long been half closed, opened 
suddenly, and he cried : — 

"Enrichetta!" 

I approached the bed, but he had already relapsed 
into a lethargic state, and could not speak. After a 
moment, he tried to raise himself again, and called, 
more loudly than before : — 

"Enrichetta!" 

"Here I am!" I said; "here I am! What do you 
wish, father dear?" 

He regarded me with an anguished but very tender 
expression of his eye, which I can never forget, and 
then asked : — 

" Why did you leave me ? " 

"I am near you," I replied, suffocated with sobs. 
He continued : — 

" Do you know that I have received the sacrament ? " 

"I do." 

"I feel my soul at peace," he replied. " There is but 
one thing that troubles me, now, and that is your 
future. . . . What is to become of you, poor child?" 



I 



88 HIS DEATH. 

Prophetic words, which have haunted me ever since, 
and at every step of my life ! 

The next day, he was failing rapidly. In a lucid 
interval, he called my mother to him, and said, in 
accents feebly articulated : — 

" Teresa, take these poor girls away. The sight of 
them oppresses my heart. They will lose their father 
before having husbands who can protect and succor 
them. In my last moments I must think only of the 
divine mercy, and leave them in its care." 

My mother made signs for us to approach, and we all 
knelt down by the side of the bed. He extended his 
trembling hands and blessed us, and, looking at us one 
after the other, he finally closed his eyes. 

In the evening, the confessor entered our room with 
a sad countenance, which, with his silence, assured us 
that we had no longer an earthly father. 



. CHAPTER V. 

THE CLOISTEE. 

Funeral of my father —Return to Naples— We meet Domenico there — We mu- 
tually pledge ourselves to each other — He returns to Reggio — His jealousy — 
My mother breaks off the match — A servant of my aunt, the Abbess of San 
Gregorio, brings me a present of confectionery, and informs me that the nuns 
of that convent have voted to admit me — Astounding news — I demand an 
explanation from my mother, who assures me that it is her own work, and 
that she is driven to it by her stinted means, as well as by the determination 
to prevent my marriage with Domenico —She assures me that I may leave the 
convent at the end of a couple of months, if I do not like it — Visit the con- 
vent with her — First impressions— My mother thanks the nuns, according to 
custom, for admitting me — Return home — Preparations — Marriage of my 
sister Josephine — Entrance into the convent — Sensation of horror. 

Maeia Theresa, of Austria, second wife of King 
Ferdinand, had, meanwhile, given birth to a son, who 
was named Luigi, Count of Trani, on which account, 
and to give eclat to this fortunate event, a great festa 
was ordered to be celebrated throughout the kingdom, 
with three days of rejoicing. 

The funeral obsequies of my father, which it was 
necessary should be observed with the honors due to his 
rank and office, could not, therefore, be celebrated dur- 
ing the time of this festa. His body was consequently 
embalmed, and the ceremony was deferred until after 
the festa. 

By the death of our father, we found ourselves sud- 
8* 89 



90 RETUKN TO NAPLES. 

denly deprived of the means of livelihood. It became 
necessary, therefore, to have recourse to the king, and 
to remind him of the long public services of our father, 
in the hope, thereby, of obtaining a pension for our 
mother. 

It was deemed necessary that we should proceed im- 
mediately to Naples, to see the king, and, on that ac- 
count, we were obliged to leave the mortal remains of 
our father uuburied, and in the care of our brothers-in- 
law. With tears in our eyes we embraced our elder 
sisters, who were married here, and the younger ones, 
also, who, in their placid innocence, were sleeping; and 
our mother, Josephine, and myself took leave of Keggio 
at daylight, on September 29, for Naples. 

We had a prosperous voyage. Twenty-seven hours 
from the time of our departure we found ourselves 
comfortably installed in furnished apartments on the 
Toledo. 

To return to Domenico. 

This domestic catastrophe united me unexpectedly to 
him again. Paul had advised him, by mail, of the mis- 
fortune Avhich had overtaken us ; but it was not yet 
time, owing to the infrequent transit of the mails, for 
him to receive the news. 

The day after our arrival, Josephine and I were seated 
at the window. She was the first to perceive Domenico 
among the crowd of passengers. We opened the win- 
dow and went out upon the balcony, to attract his 



MEET DOMENICO. 91 

attention. After the death of my father, my thoughts 
naturally recurred to him, as to an anchor of hope. He 
saw us ; but, at first, thought he must he dreaming. 

He stopped, confounded, looking at us and examin- 
ing us carefully. The mourning clothes in which we 
were dressed evidently perplexed him. At this moment 
our mother coming upon the balcony, he comprehended, 
by her presence, that it must be our father who was dead. 

He entered a cafe, tore a leaf from his memorandum- 
book, and wrote a note to my mother, asking permission 
to come and inquire personally into our afiairs. It was 
but the work of a moment. 

In meeting him again I could not restrain my tears, 
and he was himself much moved. He stopped a long 
time with us discussing our aflairs, and, in leaving, said 
that our misfortunes would not alter his sentiments to- 
wards me ; that he even deemed the present occasion 
propitious to hasten our wedding ; and that we should 
no sooner be able to despatch our business, and return 
to Eeggio, than he would follow us, in order to make a 
respectful demand of his father, as the law required, 
in case he should still persist in his determination not 
to consent to our union. After these assurances, my 
mother gave him permission to come and see us every 
evening. 

Many days passed, meanwhile, before we were able 
to get an audience of the king. We finally obtained it, 
and he granted to my mother the pension she asked for. 



92 DOMEKTCO RETURNS TO REGGIO. 

Josephine, in the mean time, had met with a gentle- 
man, who was so well pleased with her that he preferred 
a request for her hand in matrimony. This retarded 
our departure fi-om Naples, since the necessary prepa- 
rations for the wedding would require my mother to 
remain a while longer there. It was already in the middle 
of November, and the nuptials could not take place 
before the first of January. 

One evening Domenico came to see us, looking pale 
and wretched. Asking him the reason of his distress, 
he showed us a letter from his flither, which he had just 
received, in which he directed him to return to Eeggio 
forthwith. To enforce obedience, he refused to send 
him any more money, and, as he had no other pecuniary 
resource whatever, he was compelled to comply with 
his father's demands, and to return to Eeggio immedi- 
ately. 

Two days subsequently he made me the most fervent 
promises of constancy, obtained mine in return and 
departed, and we were again, alas ! separated, to meet, 
— where ? 

Many days were now spent in maldng visits to, and 
receiving them from, our relatives and friends who had 
not known of our arrival in the city before. The most 
assiduous in visiting us was Gen. Saluzzi, whose sister 
was the widow of the Prince of Forino, the brother of 
my father. He took a lively interest in us and in our 
affairs. Three aunts, Benedettine nuns, one of the 



i 



DOMENICO'S JEALOUSY. 93 

convent of San Patrizia, and the other two of San Gre- 
gorio Armeno, were very kind to us, also. They resem- 
bled very strongly our lamented father, their brother, 
though they were older than he. 

Having left Naples when I was only six years old, 
and remained away until the present time, in Calabria, 
I did not know, personally, any of our relatives. All 
was new to me. One of these before-mentioned aunts, 
the one, in fact, after whom I was named, was, I had 
forgotten to say before, the abbess of the convent of 
San Gregorio Armeno. 

Domenico, meanwhile, wrote often to my mother, as- 
suring her, in every letter, of his having taken some 
new step towards facilitating our wished-for marriage. 
His father still showed himself averse to it, but he felt 
certain that he would ultimately yield to his prayers, 
and to the more accredited intercession of his grand- 
father. Erom the tone of his letters, however, it began 
to appear that, on account of my prolonged absence, he 
was agitated in his mind anew by the demon of jealousy. 
A few days subsequently, we received a letter, to which 
there was a postscript addressed to me, in the following 
words : — 

"Dear Ejohchetta, — Noxious to love is the air of 
Naples. The fascinations of that city leave me no peace 
on your account. Return soon, if you love me with a 
true love, — and if, on the receipt of this, you do not 



94 MATCH BROKEN. 

speedily return to Eeggio, I shall hold myself released 
from all the obligations which I have made to you. 

"DOMENICO." 

On reading this message my mother became furiously 
angry, and, without taking into account the suspicious 
character of Domenico, she took up her pen and wrote 
as follows : — 

"SiGNOEE, — You pretend to impose terms upon my 
daughter, before having any right to do so. She is not 
yours ; nor shall she ever be. From this point let all 
thoughts of matrimony, between you and her, be dis- 
missed. Teresa Caracciolo." 

Neither supplications nor tears, which I employed 
freely, were able to change her determination. The 
letter was sent off. Domenico never wrote again. I, 
however, indulged the hope that, on my return to 
Eeggio, his affection would be rekindled, if the cold 
breezes of jealousy should not be strong enough to 
extinguish it. 

But my adverse star had otherwise ordained. I feasted 
upon splendid hopes, while at my feet the abyss was 
already opening, which was to swallow me. 

Christmas was approaching, and the nuptials of Jose- 



PRESENT OF CONEECTIONEEY. 95 

phine, it had been decided, were to take place in a 
private manner, on the second of January. 

My mother went out one morning, saying, as she did 
so, that urgent business required her to go alone, but 
that she did not expect to be away from the house a 
long time. 

She returned, in fact, after an hour's absence. I ob- 
served her closely ; she seemed to be in exceedingly 
good spirits, and on this account I inferred that she had 
succeeded to her satisfaction in the affair which had 
called her out. I cannot suppress the fact that my heart 
palpitated with anxiety, thinking that she might have 
been weaving, unknown to me, some project of matri- 
mony, which might definitively separate me from the 
object of my affections. 

A few days only had passed, after this mysterious 
walk, when, one morning about eight o'clock, the door- 
bell rang. The servant was absent, and I went to the door. 

A servant, whom I recognized as one in the employ 
of my aunt, the abbess, had brought, on a tray, a pres- 
ent of some dolci (confectionery). 

At the first sight of this present I was confused, sup- 
posing it might be, perhaps, the first step towards a 
proposal of matrimony. Such was the custom in some 
families. The countenance of the servant, however, 
reassured me, and I breathed more freely. 

" Are you the Signoriua Enrichetta ? " she inquired. 

" Yes," I replied. 



96 ASTOUNDING NEWS. . 

"The Signora Abbess, your aunt, salutes you." 

"Thanks ! thanks ! salute her in return for me." 

" And she desires 3^ou to know that the Capitolo has 
voted unanimously to admit you into the convent." 

" For my admission ! — for me ! — Good child, you are 
mistaken," said I, laughing with all my heart. 

" Yes, signorina, for you, yourself. I am not mis- 
taken , — no . Come to the convent soon , then , and thaak 
the sisters, and appoint your day of entrance." 

My mother, finding that I was detained at the door, 
came to see what was the occasion, and arrived in time 
to overhear the last remark of the servant-girl. Know- 
ing that her announcement, so unexpected and so horri- 
ble, would astonish me, and, perhaps, deprive me of 
the power of speech, she pushed me aside, and coming 
forward herself, said to the servant : — 

" Very well ; very well ; thank my sister-in-law cor- 
dially, and say to her that the young nun will come 
there to-day." 

Saying which, she closed the door, and, taking me by 
the hand, now colder than ice, led me into her own 
room. 

Had I been prostrated by a thunder-bolt, I could not 
have received a more frightful shock. 

I burst out into frightful sobs, and threw myself upon 
;my face on the pillows of the sofa, which I drenched 
with bitter tears; then, clasping her knees, I implored 
her compassion on her unhappy offspring. 



EXPLANATIONS OF MY -MOTHER. 9/ 

She, imperturbable of countenance, although not inca- 
pable of emotion, dried my face with her handkerchief. 
Then, in a grave tone of voice, and in measured words, 
which sounded in my ears like a sentence of capital pun- 
ishment, she said that she had been constrained to place 
me in the convent because of the condition of her finan- 
ces, as well as on account of my caprice for Domenico. 

"Your aunts," she added, "are rich; consigning you 
to them until I begin to receive my pension will be a 
relief of some weight. I am sure, besides, that the quiet 
of the convent will serve to calm your heart, now dis- 
turbed by this foolish passion. But if, after two months' 
residence there, the kindness of your aunts shall not 
have driven from your heart its abhorrence of the con- 
vent, I promise you that I will then take you out. It 
is impossible for me now to retreat, the Capitolo having 
already voted for your admission." 

"Mamma!" I exclaimed, prostrating myself again 
before her, " mamma, do not place me there, for mercy's 
sake ! At the very thought I feel myself driven almost 
to desperation." 

She arose, leisurely, and loosening herself from my 
embrace, said, in a severe tone : — 

"Your father has left for you neither dower nor 
teachers. I am the sole arbiter of your movements . . . 
the laws of God and man impose obedience upon you, 
and by my faith in God I will be obeyed." 

I refrained from further protests, either of words or of 



98 EXPLANATIONS OF MY MOTHER. 

sobs. Besides, nothing which I could have said would 
have produced any better effect. K, under the Bour- 
bon regime, the god Silence was the tutelar deity of the 
orator and the philosopher, how much more need was 
there for the use of it, for a young girl, a minor, an 
orphan, and forsaken ! 

Seeing me speechless, petrified, with hands clasped, 
with upturned eyes, and with the most profound con- 
sternation expressed in my attitude, she seemed to be 
finally moved with some compassion for her daughter, 
and softening her voice and coming to caress me, smooth- 
ing and arranging my hair, she began to exhort me, in 
accents less severe and in a manner more conformable 
to maternal kindness. 

She said : "The convent is not a prison, as the world 
generally supposes ; it is a perfect garden of health, an 
inviolate asylum, where souls, superior to social vani- 
ties and disgusted with the deceptions of the world, 
retired within its walls, never breathe an atmosphere 
contaminated by the fatal breath of the passions, nor 
subject themselves to the tempests which affect the peo- 
ple of the world. You will find in this retirement a 
profuse supply, not only of spiritual comfort, but also 
all the comforts of a pure life, and in fact all the refine- 
ments and the honest recreations of the fashionable 
world. If it were not thus, why would they be filled 
by hundreds of young ladies of the first families of Na- 



TISIT TO THE CONVENT. ^ 99 

pies, heirs to so much property and to such splendid 
worldly prospects ? " 

Finally, my experience of convent life was to be con- 
fined to a brief sojourn of only two months, at the end 
of which time I should have my liberty without fail, if 
I wished it, to make such use of it as I pleased. All 
this, and many other things besides, she said, to console 
me. 

Meanwhile she had proposed to take me to the con- 
vent during the day, but my eyelids were so much 
swollen from weeping that she was afraid to do it, and 
was obliged to defer it to another day. 

The following day, seeing it would be in vain to wait 
for any more quiet frame of mind, she ordered me to 
get mj^self ready. Poor Josephine ! I had neither the 
wish nor the heart to say good-by to her ! It was she 
who got me ready. My mother first reproved me for 
my hesitation ; then encouraged me, saying, " You may 
rest assured that in two months' time I will come for 
you, and take you out." 

We entered a carriage, and on arriving at the convent 
I alighted at the door with a heavy heart, and went up 
the first flight of steps crying all the way. In opening 
the door above mentioned, the door-keeper rang a bell 
to announce to the community that their victim was 
about to enter ! 

My aunt, the abbess, was near the door and was the 
first to welcome me. Quite happy to see me, she em- 



100 MY MOTHER THANKS THE NUXS. 

braced me, and whispered in my ear in an aflfable, but 
at the same time imperious tone, that it was my duty 
to thank the nuns for the favor they had shown me in 
accepting me as their companion. The venerated coun- 
tenance and voice of my father were present to me again 
in the face and in the tones of her voice, and affected 
me to such a degree that I was near fainting. 

Meanwhile the nuns came crowding around to see me, 
one head appearing above the other, seating themselves 
finally upon the settee. They made their comments 
about my person in a low voice. Some thought me 
handsome ; others ugly ; some thought me congenial ; 
others quite otherwise ; some saw a pleasant counte- 
nance, and others only a repulsive one. I, meanwhile, 
felt oppressed ; almost sufibcated. I would have pre- 
ferred rather to die than to enter of my own will a place 
where the book of civilization promised so little, from 
the " preface " to the " finis." 

The thanks which the abbess desired me to express 
to the nuns were profiered, not by myself, but by my 
mother, who, among other things, told them that the 
sadness on my face must be attributed to the recent 
death of my father, and to my separation from my fam- 
ily. Her remarks, which were few, and well seasoned 
wdth compliments in my name spoken, were interrupted 
by the arrival of my other paternal aunt, who was called 
Lucretia, and who, on account of some accident to one 



EETUEN HOME. 101 

of her limbs or to her back, had to be supported by 
two converse (servant-nuns). 

The nuptials of Josephine had been appointed to take 
place January 2, 1840. It was determined, therefore, 
between my mother and my abbess-aunt, that I should 
make my formal entrance into the convent two days 
after the wedding. 

On my return to the house I refused food altogether, 
and to the fatal day of entrance I did not cease weeping. 

HoAv many magnanimous efforts did not my paternal 
relatives make to induce my mother not to sacrifice me 
in this manner ! She replied, that to place me for two 
months in a convent among ladies of noble birth was 
certainly not immolating me. And that such was, at 
that time, her sole intention I had occasion a little later 
to know. 

The Princess of Torino offered to take me into her 
own house for these two mouths, and her sons, my 
cousins, pledged themselves that I should marry the 

Duke of , a very distant relative of the family and a 

widower. My mother returned thanks for these kind 
offers, but declined them, saying, that as to the propo- 
sition of matrimony, she would speak further on her 
return from Calabria.. 

N'ot only our immediate relatives, but also those more 

remote, as well as friends, emulated each other in 

striving to do something for me. General Saluzzi, a 

gentleman endowed with an uncommon degree of phi- 

9* 



102 MARRIAGE OF JOSEPHINE. 

lanthropy and a fellow-soldier of my father, assured me 
that whatever might be my future condition, he would 
give me a thousand ducats, whenever I should claim 
them. 

The evening of January 2 arrived, and the nuptials 
of Josephine were celebrated, as had been proposed. I 
accojnpanied her, still crying. Inseparable are tears 
from the drama of my life ! She was leaning on the 
arm of a man whom she loved, and who loved her ; and 
I, miserable I, was compelled to tear myself away from 
her and from every other loved one. 

My grief, the last sigh of one who was about to be 
lost to the world, saddened the rites. Fatal presage at 
such a ceremony ! 

The morning of the 4th January finally arrived. At 
that time I wore my hair in ringlets ; as I was dressing 
it in my usual manner, my mother stopped me, say- 
ing:— 

" What are you doing ? do you think that is the style 
of dressing the hair in the convent ? Take down j^our 
ringlets. This morning you must dress your hair per- 
fectly plain." 

"But, gracious heavens ! I am not entering a convent 
to be made a nun," I replied, much excited. "If I am 
only to stay there two months, why should I entirely 
spoil my head of hair ? Why not dress it as usual ? " 

" That I do not design to make a nun of you, you 



EISTTEAlSrCE INTO THE OONVENT. 103 

kuow very well ; but the abbess told me not to bring 
you to the co^iveut this morning with your hair dressed 
as it was the other day, for fear the uuns might call you 
vain." 

And in saying this she took the comb and with her 
own hands dressed it to suit herself. 

A little while after, General Salluzzi came with the 
daughter-in-law of the Princess of Forino, who were to 
accompany me to the convent. 

Passing along the street which leads from the Ma- 
donna delle Grazie in the Toledo to San Gregorio Arme- 
no, I felt myself immersed in a state which participated 
of stupor and of trance. I seemed to be in the anguish 
of a sad dream. My memory was overcrowded vnth. 
the dearest and most pathetic recollections of the past, 
from which I was about to be separated for a time, 
which was not fixed with any degree of certainty. I 
thought of the innocent amusements of my childhood, 
which I had shared with friends who had been more 
fortunate than I ; of the tender caresses of my father, 
and of his fatal. illness ; of the joys of early loves and of 
Domenico. Alas ! especially did my thoughts recur to 
him, — perfectly oblivious of everything that was being 
said or that was going on around me. 

My mother had taken the precaution to cover my face 
with a thick veil, in order that my crying should not 
attract public attention along the street ; nevertheless, 
the handkerchief which I had so frequent occasion to 



104 SENSATIONS OF HORROR. 

cany to my eyes attracted the notice of the people, as I 
knew from the observations of the persons who accom- 
panied me. 

We arrived meanwhile at our destination. 

The convent doors were opened wide : horvid fauces 
of a monster ! I felt myself seized suddenly b}^ un- 
known hands, pushed from behind, and drawn I kuew 
not whither. I heard the creaking of the bolts, pad- 
locks, and chains, by which the horrible doors were 
barred and secured ; the ribbon with which my hair was 
tied up was torn off, my shawl taken away ; and when I 
came to myself I found myself on my knees at a large 
chancel of richly gilded wood. 

It was the coro.* * 

A nun said to me : — 

" You should thank God for ha^nng brought you to 
this holy place." 

I neither replied to her, nor offered thanks. My rea- 
son having returned, which for a moment had deserted 
me, a sad thought flashed across my mind : — 

"The presage, alas ! too soon confirmed, of my dying 
father." 



* Coro is properly translated choir, but in a sense of the word to which we are 
but little accustomed, therefore the original word is used in tliis book. It is the 
place, or room, to which the monks and nuns in a convent go to participate in the 
religious services of the church, as well as for their own devotional exercises. 
They can only hear or be heard, see or be seen, by persons in the church, through 
a grating which is seen in the wall, generally near the high altar. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

THE ABANDOOTIENT. 

My mother deserts me — Two young nuns wait upon me around the convent — De- 
scription of the building audits appointments, pictures, etc. — Extracts from 
the old chronicle of Fulvia Caracciolo — Anxiety of the nuns that I should 
determine at once to take the veil — Pa olina — Jealousy among the nuns — 
Angiola Maria — Visit of my mother, who cruelly deceives me — Illness pro- 
duced by my incarceration. 

"When we left the coro the nuns oflfered to show me 
around the convent. 

I inqun-ed for my mother and was told that, not wish- 
ing to detain the general and my cousin, she had gone 
away with them, but that she would not fail to return to 
see me the following day. 

Two young nuns, sisters, accompanied me. They 
were called Concettina and Checchina. I had need of 
air; my anxiety took away my breath. I accepted, 
therefore, their invitation to go with them to see what- 
ever there was notable in the convent. 

Our visit began with the sacred temple of San 
Gregorio 1' lUuminatore. 

It is said by intelligent archaeologists to stand on the 
same spot which, in the antique times, was occupied by 
the temple of Ceres, which, with that of the Dioscuri, 
the large theatre and the basilica, surrounded the piazza 



106 DESCRIPTION OF THE CONVENT- 

Augustale, now encumbered with the vast church and 
convent of San Lorenzo Maggiorc. This is a mistake. 
The before-mentioned qualifications are not precisely 
applicable to this church itself, which was built on a 
different spot, when the antique temple was destroyed 
in consequence of the decree of the Council of Trent, 
which, about the year 1580, obliged the nuns to subvert 
the old order of things and arrange, in an entirely dif- 
ferent manner, the interior portion of the structure, to 
conform to the rigors of the modern cloister. 

They recount the legend that the temple of Ceres was 
converted into a Christian sanctuary, by the pious wife 
of Costanzo Cloro, and, being surrounded by large 
edifices, it was placed under the protection of San Pan- 
taleone. Not less erroneous is this tradition. If my 
memory does not deceive me, this oriental saint lived 
about the time of Constantine the Great. That which 
is positively .known, goes back to a very antique date and 
has special relation to iconoclastic persecutions which 
broke out in Constantinople, instigated by the Greek 
Emperor Leone 1' Isauro, that crowned Luther of the 
middle asjes. A band of monks and cloistral virgjins 
deserted Greece at that time, in order to escape from 
the fanaticism of the clergy and of the reformers. Italy 
was invaded by them. Eome offered to the orthodox 
fugitives generous hospitality ; and Naples, which had 
in common with Greece, not only the same origin and 
language, in part, and customs, but even the same rites 



DESCEIPTION OF THE CONVENT. 107 

and litnrg}?^, also submitted to the same hierarch. Naples 
then, and the neighboring provinces, found themselves 
encumbered with these exiles, who soon organizing 
themselves into religious communities, constructed in- 
numerable cloisters under the order of San Basilio. 
Authors, worthy of all credit, tell us that alone in these 
our meridional provinces, exclusive of Sicily, there 
were about one thousand Grecian monasteries, great 
and small, so late as the middle of the fifteenth century, 
under the above-mentioned order. 

The church and the convent of which I am writing 
enjoy the seniority among all the others of the same 
order founded in Naples, and had for protector, San 
Gregorio Armeno, because the fugitive virgins, Avho 
founded them, brought with them the relics of this 
apostle from Armenia. The fall of the Greek emperor, 
occasioned by the conquest of Mahomet II., and the 
subjection of the Byzantine patriarch, which grew out 
of it, led to the downfall of the character as well as of 
the oriental rite which the Basilian order had, until this 
time, conserved in Italy. For reasons not sufficiently 
well understood, the convents abandoned the rules of 
San Basilio, in order to embrace the other not very 
dissimilar and altogether homogeneous one of San 
Benedetto, even before the monasteries of Basilian monks 
were entirely Latinized, — a fact which occurred after 
those three potent and consecutive crises of the western 
church; the reform, Jesuitism, and the Council of 



108 DESCEIPTION OF THE CONVEXT. 

Trent ; crises which succeeded each other during the 
sixteenth century. 

In the facade of the church of SauGregorio, over a 
high basement with three arches in front, two orders of 
construction are raised, the composite on the doric. A 
few steps lead to the spacious atrium supported by four 
pilasters, over which is situated the large coro of the 
nuns. At the extremity is the principal ingress to the 
church, and entering there you find a single nave, with 
four chapels on each side and two open spaces, of a size 
equal to the chapels themselves, one-half of the front of 
which is occupied by two organs ; one of these passages 
leads to the sacristy by a small door, and the other to 
the confessionals. A balustrade divides the nave from 
the presbytery, where the high altar is erected between 
four arches similar to those which support the cupola. 
The architectural order of the entire fabric is the com- 
posite, but crowded with cornices, leaves, and decora- 
tions of every species, all in gilt ; the plain surfaces 
being decorated in the Damascus style, and there 
is no space on the walls not covered by frescos ; deco- 
rations all of which are certainly better adapted to the 
ostentation of rich baronial palaces, or the theatres, 
than to the devout simplicity of the temples dedicated 
to our holy religion. The large door is of black walnut, 
richly carved in admirable relief, representing the four 
evangelists, and in the centre the two saints, Stephen 
and Lorenzo, surroimded by ornamental work. The 



DESCRIPTION OF THE CONVENT. 109 

ceiling, which is of wood carved and gilt, is divided into 
three large compartments, in which arc three pictures by 
Teodoro il ^iammingo, representing San Gregorio in his 
pontiJScal robes, with an open book in his hand, stand- 
ing between two assistants at the altar ; the second rep- 
resents the same saint receiving the nuns into his order ; 
and the third, the baptism of the Eedeemer. The 
ceiling is further subdivided into small compartments, 
of divers forms, which contain another picture by the 
same Fiammingo, which looks like a large rose cut 
in wood. The two organs standing together, with the 
orchestra in the two open spaces, are rich in bizarre 
carving and gilded with fine gold. The chapels are or- 
namented with much fine work in marble, variegated in 
raised and perforated foliage, having a balustrade also 
of maible, ornamented in the same style ; above this 
are other works in bronze, and in the centre a small 
chancel of the same design and metal. 

Of the pictures, the three over the door, in which are 
represented the arrival and the welcome of the Greek 
nuns at Naples, as likewise that between the small 
windows, which also represents facts in the life of San 
Gregorio, those in the small divisions above the arches, 
those on the dome, and those finally of the grand coro, 
which represent scenes in the life of San Benedetto, are 
all from the hand of Luca Giordano. It may also be 
noted that of the three frames over the door, in that 
which is at the left of the observer, in the head of the 
10 



110 DESCRIPTION OF THE CONVENT. 

man who stands in the act of indicating a place to the 
nuns who have just landed from the boat, the painter 
has given a portrait of himself, at fifty years of age, 
which must have been about his age at that time. 

Behind the high altar, which is constructed from the 
designs of Diouysius Lazzari, may be seen the great 
picture of the ascension of our Lord, by Bernardo Lana. 
In the first chapel, on the right side of the church, is a 
picture of the Annunciation, — a piece of fine coloring 
by Pacecco de Eosa. The third chapel is dedicated to 
San Gregorio Armeno, and is larger and more beauti- 
fully ornamented than the others. Over the altar, in the 
centre of two columns of red French marble, there is a 
very valuable picture by Francesco di Maria, repre- 
senting the bishop saint, seated and surrounded by 
angels. On the lateral walls the saint is represented in 
two compositions, in one of which, he is going before 
King Thiridates in all humility, with his face transformed 
into the likeness of a hog ; and in the other, he is taken 
at the moment of being drawn forth from lake Ararat, 
where he had lived with great suffering for fourteen 
years. These two pictures, painted with great force 
and truth of coloring, and with fine efiect of light and 
shade, are from the pencil of Francesco Fracanzano, a 
pupil of Spagnoletto. By Cesare Fracanzano, brother 
of the former, are the lunettes over the pictures just de- 
scribed, which represent two different tortures which 
the saint suffered. The ceiling of this chapel is divided 



DESCKIPTION OF THE CONVENT. Ill 

into several compartments, where, in smaller dimen- 
sions, are related various scenes in the life of San Gre- 
gorio, by the same Francesco di Maria, whose pictures 
in fresco claimed the admiration of the same Giordano, 
who speaks of having much admired and praised them. 
In the fourth chapel, the picture of the Madonna del 
Eosario is by Mcolo Malinconico, pupil of Giordano. 
Of the chapels on the left, the first has a painting of the 
nativity of the school of Marco di Siena ; the third, the 
beheading of John the Baptist, by Silvestro Morvillo, 
called il Bruno; and the fourth, in which is represented 
San Benedetto adoring the Virgin, who is above him, 
is attributed to Spagnoletto. 

On the morning of March 3, 1443, it being Sunday, 
King Alfonso I., of Aragon, placed upon the head of his 
son Ferrante a crown of gold, and put into his right hand 
a sword ornamented with gems, thus confirming him 
Duke of Calabria, and his own successor in the king- 
dom, as he had been already proclaimed the day pre- 
vious by the general parliament, in the saloon of the 
capitolo in San Lorenzo. One such solemn ceremony 
was performed with regal pomp, in the presence of the 
barons and of all the court of the king, in the antique 
church, already demolished, which we have just before 
mentioned. 

In the same church were preserved, until 1574, the 
sepulchre of the nuns and the bones of the other de- 
funct, in tombs which bear date from the earliest years 



112 CHRONICLE OF FULVIA CARACCIOLO. 

of the convent, as shown by the chronicle of Donna 
Fulvia Caracciolo, one of my ancestors, and a nun iu 
the same convent, who lived about the epoch in which 
the cloister was first introduced. Very interesting is 
the description which she has given us of the transfer of 
these same relics from the antique church, to a more 
secure place ; which event happened under the abbess- 
ate of Lucretia Caracciolo. 

"There remained now," she writes, "only in the 
church, the sepulchres in which reposed the mortal re- 
mains of the sisters and other dead, and, since they 
remained uncovered, it grieved us to the heart, because 
we had no place in which we could preserve the remains 
of our predecessors ; and all the more, because some 
had died, comparatively recently, whose bodies were 
still entire, and it occasioned many remarks, which we 
all felt more or less acutely, and, moved by these and 
our own compassion, on the night of October 20, 1574, 
in order not to frighten the other sisters, I, together 
Avith Beatrice Carrafia, Donna Camilla Sersale, Donna 
Isabella, and Donna Giovanna de Loffredo, first closing 
the doors of the church and reciting the service for the 
dead, caused the vaults to be emptied in our presence, 
using every possible diligence that they should be well 
cleaned, and we then placed the bones in another vault, 
iu good order ; we then had as raaLy coffins for the dead 
as there were tombs, and, having deposited the aforesaid 



CHRONICLE or FULVIA CAEACCIOLO. 113 

relics in these, we caused inscriptions to be made on 
them for future recognition." 

This passage, which I have often read in the original 
manuscript, has always made me shudder for fear that 
my own bones, destined, perhaps, to be consigned some 
day to the common receptacle of my companions, in the 
seclusion, should be subjected, some time or other, to the 
same vicissitudes. 

It is also from this chronicle that we get our informa- 
tion about the ancient style of dress of the Benedettine 
nuns, and of the manner of reading their prayers in the 
Longobardo books. 

"In regard to the dress, I will say that we wore white, 
with the tunic made in the manner of a sash, precisely 
like those worn in the present day by widows, but of 
the finest and whitest cloth. On our heads we wore a 
Greek band, modestly ornamented. We used the Lon- 
gobardo books, and, therefore, the greatest part of our 
lives we spent in reading our prayers, which, being in 
those days very long, were recited by us with great 
solemnity. When the nuns made the profession, the 
ceremony was performed on three different days and in 
three difierent modes. First, they were initiated by 
the abbess ; on the following day they said vespers, 
when their hair was cut off. After some months or 
years, according to the age, they took the second orders, 
which were some dignities in the coro. The third 
order was taken at a mature age, or after arriving at 
10* 



114 CHRONICLE OF FULVIA CAEACCIOLO. 

fifteen, and, in taking this order, the mass of the Holy 
Spirit was first said; and while this was being recited, 
the hair was again cut. In this operation we drew over 
the forehead a garland of hair, which was then sepa- 
rated into seven locks, or tresses ; at the extremity of 
each the abbess attached a pellet of white wax, and thus 
we remained until the mass was finished ; when this was 
concluded, the abbess cut off these tresses and covered 
the head with a white veil, and we then put on a black 
dress over the white one, which, until that time, we had 
worn. The black one was cut two fingers shorter than 
the white, without which it was not lawful for any one 
to appear in the coro, on festa days. 

" This dress then was the prerogative which conferred 
the active and the passive voice, and enabled the wearer 
to participate in the property of the monastery. This 
same dress is worn in the last illness, and in it the nun 
is buried. On week-days we officiated in the coro, 
wearing a black mantle, without which we were not per- 
mitted to repeat a line in that place ; and this rule is 
observed even to this day." 

In spite of these rigorous rules, it is true that the 
nuns of that time passed freely around among the differ- 
ent possessions of the monastery, where they were at 
liberty to remain for several weeks, going out in the 
morning and returning in the evening, by peiTiission of 
the abbess, and for days, and even months, they had 
the privilege to remain in the houses of their relatives ; 



DESCEIPTION OF THE CONVENT. 115 

a custom which, to the honor of the monastical order in 
the Greek church, which does not recognize the authority 
of the Council of Trent, obtains even to this day. 

There are preserved in the sanctuary of the monastery 
several relics of saints and martyrs, to which the nuns, 
and vulgar superstition attribute the power to work 
miracles. Besides the head of San Gregorio 1' Illumi- 
natore, which the fugitive Greek nuns brought with 
them, there are, also, the head of Saint Stephen, and 
that of Saint Biagio, which is covered with silver ; a 
piece of the wood of the holy cross ; two arms, one of 
Saint Lorenzo, and the other of San Pantaleone ; the 
chair of San Gregorio Armeno, and the leather strap 
with which this saint was beaten ; both objects which, 
by supernatural prerogative, have the power to cast out 
devils ; the blood of Saint Stephen and that of San 
Pantaleone, which, if in a state of perpetual liquefac- 
tion, is not, however, of different colors, as is that 
of the same martyrs, worshipped in the church of 
Santa Maria in Yallicello, at Rome, and in the cathe- 
dral at Amalfi. This sacred anatomical cabinet fur- 
nishes excitement to the festas, which never fail of being 
periodically signalized by miraculous events. 

The convent constructed around the church is very 
large. Entering by an external door, a commodious 
staircase is seen, which leads to a second door, on which 
we find the pictures of Giacomo del Po, in chiaroscuro, 
and whence we go to the different ^aWatom (reception- 



116 DESCRIPTION OF THE CONVENT. 

rooms.) Kich in ornament, inexhaustible in accommo- 
dations, and of princely magnificence, is the interior of 
this monastery, — this grand hotel of women, so proud 
of their noble descent that they will not receive for a 
sister in their community any young lady whose family 
has not belonged to one of the first classes in Nai:les. 
Very large and beautiful is the sleeping-room, or dor- 
mitorio ; not less so the refectory. The coro, which 
opens into the body of the church, is spacious, as is 
also the cloister, in the centre of which there is a foun- 
tain and two statues, — Christ and the Samaritan, by 
Matteo Battiglieri ; immense, and especially fine, are 
the terraces,' which are on the roof of the convent, or- 
namented with flowers and paintings, from which we 
have one of the finest views of Naples to be had any- 
where ; for from this magnificent look-out may be seen 
the surrounding mountains and hills, the city itself, the 
bay, and the many agreeable walks and drives in the 
suburbs. 

Besides the portions of the convent buildings already 
described, there is the chapel of Santa Maria dell' Idria 
(a corruption of the Greek word Odigitria) , with the 
Byzantine picture of the Virgin worshipped under this 
name, and the pictures of Paolo de Matteis, a sumptu- 
ously ornamented chapel, and, finall}^, there is the saloon 
of the archbishop, where, among other monumental his- 
tories, is preserved the above-mentioned chronicle of 
the Caracciolo. 



PAOLINA. 117 

But it is time to return to my own afiairs. 

The novelty of the place, of the persons, of the ob- 
jects, and of the customs, occupied my attention for a 
time. It was a new world for me, and entirely un- 
known. During this first visit around the convent 
building, I met many nuns by the way, and all asked 
me the same question : — 

" Are you going to take the veil ? " 

"JSTo," I replied, invariably. 

At this response, smiling as though prompted by a 
supreme conviction, they added: — 

" San Benedetto will not allow you to escape after you 
have once put on his robe." 

Some daja before entering the convent, the servant 
of my aunt came to tell me that a young nun, called 
Paolina, desired to make a friend and inseparable confi- 
dant of me, while I had as yet hardly set my foot in the 
convent. 

I had already been several hours there and no one 
else had called on me, except the two sisters, whom my 
aunt had desired to accompany me around the building. 
I inquired of them about Paolina. They replied that she 
was young and accustomed always to divert herself in 
the society of a couple of educande (pupils) . I had in 
fact already seen her, having met her in company with 
the same young girls, promenading in the cloister, and 



118 JEALOUSIES AMONG THE NUNS. 

I had wondered that she, alone, of all the nuns, had not 
approached nor saluted me. 

As we were passing along under the arched corridor, 
on the ground floor, a little later, we met her again. I 
assumed an air of cheerfulness, smiled, and saluted her 
from a distance ; and had the mortification to perceive 
that, instead of responding to it, they were exchanging 
some sneering remarks about me. But it did not end 
here. 

Concettina asked me why I had inquired particularly 
about Paolina, and where I had known her. I then told 
her of the message which had been sent to me by my 
aunt. Checchina then remembered that Paolina, some 
days before, had had some difficulty with her young 
friends, and had sent the message to me only to spite 
them ; but that soon after, becoming reconciled to them 
again, she had promised them not to approach me, as 
they had become very jealous of me. 

"Jealous ! " I exclaimed, surprised ; " are there, then, 
jealousies among you ? " 

" Ah, very many, signorina ! I could wish there were 
none ! " responded the sisters, at the same moment. 

" Mercy ! " I added, " there will be all the discords, 
of course, too, which are inseparable from jealousy ! " 

It seemed so very strange to me, truly, that there 
should be jealousies among women ; yexy strange and 
vulgar, the gossip of the nun Paolina; and perfectly 
pestiferous that there should be these discords in a house 



ANGIOLA MAEIA. 119 

hermetically closed and excluded from the beneficial in- 
fluences of communion with the rest of humanity. From 
these symptoms of corruption, I perceived that I had 
now to associate with women, who, although noble by 
birth, had, however, only the negative sort of education 
suitable for their own domestics. 

I waited for the evening with no little anxiety, to give 
vent to the uneasiness which was consuming me, in the 
expectation that I should have a room to myself. But 
what was my surprise at seeing a bed made up- for me 
in the room of my aunt, the abbess, and by the side of 
it a third for her conversa (servant-nun) ! 

The comforts of solitude and of tears were also to be 
denied to me ! 

While my aunt was "undressing herself and reciting 
her prayers in an undertone, I was compelled to endure 
the tormenting questionings of the conversa. 

This woman, whose name was Angiola Maria, was 
about thirty -two years old, of an iron constitution, and 
very corpulent ; her face was marked with the small- 
pox, and she had a very large mouth with black teeth ; 
to all these, disgusting enough, certainly, were added, 
at one moment, an ill-natured and uproarious laugh, at 
another, a scowling look, with a ceaseless rolling of the 
eyes, which seemed ready to burst out of their sockets. 
Besides being yncivil and inattentive to my aunt, who 
was now well advanced in years, she was very petulant, 



120 VISIT OF JVIY MOTHER. 

when interrupted by her, in her everlasting chattering, 
with some words of reproach. 

She got into bed and went to sleep finally, leaving me 
alone with my sad thoughts ; alone, in a silence not dis- 
turbed by any other noise than the isochronal beating 
of a pendulum-clock. 

I was sleepy ; overcome rather by nervous oppression 
than by sleep itself, when about daylight I was awaked 
by Angiola Maria, who inquired whether I would attend 
the first or second mass. 

"When I am awake," I replied with a sigh, "I will 
go to whichever pleases you." 

The couversa assisted me to dress, gossiping all the 
while, then taking me confidentially by the hand, as she 
would have done had I been blind, she went down with 
me to the comunichino (the place where the communion 
is administered), where we found several nuns as- 
sembled, listening to the mass and receiving the com- 
munion. 

At ten o'clock my mother came ; I found her seated 
in the parlatorio. 

On seeiug her I wept bitterly, and told her I was very 
unhappy in a place whose inactive and stupid seclusion 
was, it seemed to me, more insuficrable than the prison 
itself; that it was a fearful martyrdom for mc to be 
obliged to live with people not less ignorant than uncul- 
tivated, — who already were annoying me about taking 
the veil ; that I feared to lose my health as I had lost 



SHE CEUELLY DECEIVES ME. 121 

my liberty ; and was suljject to the caprices of the con- 
versa of my aunt, who made me rise before daylight in 
order to keep me an hour in the church, exposed to a 
degree of cold which was insupportable, and to a dis- 
comfort which was sufficient to make me annoyed even 
with prayer itself. 

She was about to answer me, when the portress, and 
some other nuns following her, entered to salute my 
mother. After exchanging compliments with them, she 
said she was then going to attend mass at San Lorenzo, 
but that later in the day she would return. She went 
out and I followed her, remaining under the corridor, 
immersed in the saddest reflections, which were pro- 
duced by my abandonment. 

An hour passed ; an hour and a half ; two hours even ; 
whilst I was pacing the floor with slow and measured 
steps, and yet my mother did not return. Disappointed 
at her delay, I turned to the portress and asked her to 
send to San Lorenzo one of the women who were stand- 
ing idly about the door, to inquire the reason why my 
mother did not come back according to her promise. 
The portress, taking me by the hand, said : — 

" Have patience, my dear .... either from love or 
from force, it is necessary for you to drink of this cup." 

"Of what cup do you speak?" I asked, frightened, 
and with a presentiment of some new misfortune. "I 
tell you that my motfier is late in returniDg and I should 
like to know the reason. " 
11 



122 MY ILLNESS. 

"It is needless for you to wait here." 

"Why?" 

"Your mother has already gone to Reggio." 

If she had not supported me, I should have fallen to 
the floor. I was perfectly stunned. I knew very well 
that my mother was to go away, but why should she go 
off the day following my seclusion ? Why go without 
taking leave of me ? 

My nerves, already shaken by so many misfortunes, 
were unable to resist this last blow, and I was attacked 
with convulsions. 

When I had recovered my senses and reopened my 
eyes, I found myself surrounded by a crowd of nuns, of 
converse and of educande, all strangers to me, and all 
intent on feeding their vulgar curiosity and the idleness 
and the apathy incident to their condition on the spec- 
tacle of my dejection. Some were whispering here ; 
some commenting there ; while others had an expression 
of sarcasm on their faces ; not a single one directed 
towards me a look of sincere sympathy. The physician, 
Ronchi, who now entered the door, being in the employ 
of the community, administered some prompt remedies. 
The fever which supervened confined me to my bed for 
more than a week. 

When destiny is adverse to you, iti brings with it all 
sorts of misfortunes. Now for ar month past I had be- 
gun to persuade myself that the abandonment on the 



JOSEPHINE. 123 

part of Domenico was only too real. I had till now 
nourished the hope, ever since my entrance into this sep- 
ulchre, not only of receiving a letter from him, but even 
of seeing him return to Naples to occupy himself with 
seeking my liberation. If his feelings for me were as 
strong as mine for him ; if any generous sentiment dwelt 
in his breast ; if the voice of humanity found any echo 
in his heart; if the recollection of my constancy and 
devotion should overbalance in his mind that of vile 
interest ; how could he tolerate my falling a victim to 
my oaths of fidelity to him ? 

How many times have I looked from the coro into 
the body of the church, hoping to find him there ! How 
many times have I, with anxious heart, stood upon the 
high terrace and looked for him in the difierent streets 
which are seen from thence ! Often deceived by the 
similarity of walk or dress of some one who resembled 
him, have I felt myself on the verge of fainting, believ- 
ing that the day of my ransom had arrived ! But, alas ! 
he never addressed a single line to me, nor did my 
mother ever mention him in any of her letters. 

I saw Josephine from time to time, but the presence 
of this beloved sister only increased my grief. The in- 
jury from which she had suffered at the time of her fall 
was now declared to be incurable, and in order to go 
out at all she was obliged to use crutches. Occasionally 
General Salluzzi came to offer me such consolation as he 
could. My other relatives and friends no longer remem- 



124 A NEW EMOTION. 

bered the poor orphan. It might be said, that an abyss 
already separated me from the whole world, in spite of 
the sympathy which I felt with humanity, and which 
always found an affectionate echo in my heart. 

Nevertheless, in the midst of this general abandon- 
ment, one consolation alleviated my suffering ; the ele- 
vation of my spirit to that God of charity, who was born, 
lived, and died, not for the mute homes of the desert, 
nor for inanimate solitudes, but for the good of human- 
ity and the salvation of mankind, bound together by the 
sole and indivisible ties of fraternal love. 

One evening in February, I was alone on the terrace. 
The rays of the descending sun were only seen glim- 
mering on the summit of Vesuvius and on the heights of 
Castellamare, which being covered by snow reflected a 
brilliancy which seemed to delay the approaching twi- 
light. An unusual silence reigned ; the excitement of 
the carnival had attracted the people to the various cen- 
tres of the city most frequented* to such a degree that 
the neighborhood of San Lorenzo, where the convent is 
situated, was quite depopulated. I could only hear the 
dying echoes of the popuhir exultation, which sounded 
like the roaring of the distant waves of the sea. 

A new emotion took possession of me. tn the free 
air and under the immense vault of the heavens, I felt 
myself alone, it is true, as before, but not isolated. The 
voice of the Almightj' called me to the contemi)lation of 
his mercy. I sank on my knees and joined my hands 



I 



A NEW EMOTION. 125 

in prayer, raised my eyes to heaven, bathed in tears, 
and invoked the aid of the great Omniscient. 

"Who and what am I?" I exclaimed, rising, and 
wiping away my tears ; " what are my suflPerings in 
comparison with those of the nation to which I belong ? 
If, under the double yoke of spiritual and temporal 
tyranny, the whole of Italy languishes, shall I pretend, 
insignificant atom as I am, I alone, among so many 
millions who are oppressed, to consume my own life in 
contentment and prosperity ? " 
11* 



CHAPTER Vn. 

ECCLESIASTICAL ESTABLISHMENTS OF NAPLES AND OTHER 
OF THE ITALIAN STATES. 



The nation one vast monastical congregation— General statistics of monasticism 
— Number of establishments, priests, etc., etc., in Naples — List of the mon- 
asteries and convents, with the number of their inhabitants — Kesults. 



Behold me separated now for an indeterminate time 
from that society in the communion of which I had lived 
twenty years ; behold me thrown suddenly into the nar- 
row limits of a negative world, in intimate and daily 
intercourse only with nuns, monks, and priests ! 

Shall I take advantage of this shipwreck to point out 
to the reader some regions as yet unexplored, in order 
to reveal some traits of the cloistral life, which have 
hitherto been inaccessible to all others, except to 
women? I will make the effort. 

But before resuming the thread of my argument, in 
whose changing scenes clerical despotism and monastic 
demoralization will play a prominent part, it will not be 
unacceptable to the reader, I flatter myself, to give a 
brief view of the ecclesiastical establishments existing 
on our peninsula in general, and in Naples in particular. 
The condition of the clergy, both regular and secular, 



ITALY A VAST MONASTICAL CONGREGATION. 127 

is too closely associated in my memoirs, as well during 
the epoch in which I was subject to their power, as sub- 
sequent to the national regeneration ; therefore I have 
not always deemed it necessary to place around these 
conditions any indications which would locate the scenes 
from time to time unfolded in the following episodes. 
Conscious, not less of my own incompetency, than of 
the limits of this work, I shall not certainly venture 
into critical considerations of the past and present state 
of the clergy in Italy. My intention being only to 
show, in rapid review, the frightful proportions of that 
social malady which infests our country in every corner, 
I shall confine myself to the authority of official returns, 
whose positive and persuasive eloquence will probably 
have more weight with the public than any amount of 
rhetorical declamation. These figures, being taken from 
statistical tables and official documents which have been 
recently issued, the reader may rely upon their correct- 
ness and their exemption from the adulterations which 
party spirit is accustomed occasionally to interpolate. 

It is an incontestable fact, that when we consider the 
extent of territory and of population, there is no Cath- 
olic state, no Christian, even, which claims so large a 
number of bishoprics, of secular priests, of churches, 
of monasteries and convents, of monks and nuns, as 
may be counted in Italy ; which has the sad privilege 
of being called, among all the cultivated nations of 
Europe, the Levitical state, jpar excellence. Until the 



128 ITALY A VAST MONASTICAL CONGREGATION. 

close of the last century, it was in reality a vast mon- 
astical congregation ! 

The secularized breath of modern civilization, al- 
though repelled and sometimes dissipated by the com- 
bined action of two indigenous enemies, inimical equally 
to the emancipation of the conscience and of the reason, 
— the reaction of the clergy and political despotism, — 
has not failed, however, to penetrate a little even in this 
direction. But in spite of the silent revolutions of 
principles and customs which excited in the present 
and preceding centuries the spontaneous extinction of 
several orders, and the fusion of many ecclesiastical 
establishments into a single one, — in spite of the labo- 
rious industry with which the French, during their oc- 
cupation, at the period of the Eepublic, restricted to 
the narrowest possible limits the monstrous superfeta- 
tion of the secular clergy, and suppressed in Piedmont, 
as well as in the ex-Bourbon kingdom, many monas- 
teries and convents (about two hundred in the kingdom 
of Naples alone !) , — in spite of the more recent precau- 
tions of the Italian government, relative to the gradual 
extinction of monasticism, — in spite of all these, Italy 
continues still to be, as she has been in times past, the 
Levitical state, j)ar excellence; and it is aggravated by 
so much prelacy and hierarchy, by so many clergy, 
regular and secular, as still infinitely to exceed the 
wants of the people. 

Grea.ter still are the proportions of the different 



GEKEEAL STATISTICS OF MONASTICISM. 129 

orders of monasteries and convents, as set forth in one 
of the most accredited French journals {Le Debats). 
In France, at the period just now indicated, there were 
one thousand and eighty-one abbeys, in which there were 
eight hundred monks and two hundred and eighty-one 
women and six hundred and nineteen capitoli, among 
whom there were twenty-four noble ladies. 

Let us look now at Italy. 

Italy, with a little more than 24,000,000 population, 
against 37,000,000 of France, has eighty-two different 
religious orders, and two thousand three hundred and 
eighty -two monasteries and convents ; and it may be 
said, that she possesses now, in 1864, double the num- 
ber of monastical establishments, which, in 1789, ex- 
isted in France, a country notoriously larger and more 
populous. 

The sum total of these 2,382 monastic establishments 
is thus divided : 15,500 professed monks; 18,198 pro- 
fessed nuns; 4,474 conversi (servant monks); 7,671 
converse (servant nuns) ; in all, 45,843 ; or, in fact, a 
number fully equal to that of the population of some 
of the inferior states of the Germanic confederation ! 

" Contrasting (continues Le Debats) the property of 
the clergy in France in 1789 with that of Italy in 1864, 
we find that in Italy, what with the corporations, the 
bishoprics, the buildings, the prebends, etc., they enjoy 
an immense income calculated in Italian Kre (which is 
the same as the French franc) , 75,266,216; while the 



130 GENERAL STATISTICS OF MONASTICISM. 

clergy of France were in the receipt of 133,000,000 ; " 
and its rental may be calculated at a quarter of that of 
all France, without exaggeration. Besides, when the 
decree of November 2, 1789, declared all this property 
to be national, it was estimated at 1,100,000,000 lire ! 
The property of the Italian clergy amounts then to 
almost 2,000,000,000 lire, or a tenth less than double 
that which before the revolution of 1789 the clergy of 
one of the most opulent, potent, and populous nations 
of the earth possessed ! 

From special figures, we pass now to others more 
general. The comprehensive enumeration which fol- 
lows is taken from the complete statistics recently 
published by the official journals of Naples. 

''The number of the clergy, regular and secular, in 
all Italy, amounted in 1857-8 to 189,800 members; 
that is to say, 1 to every 142 laity, and they are dis- 
tributed, in round numbers, as follows : — 

82,000 in Naples and the Two Sicilies; 

40,000 in the Pontifical States ; 

31,900 in Central Italy; 

16,500 in the Sardinian States ; 

10,700 in Lombardy ; 
8,700 in the Venetian ; or two-thirds as many 
ecclesiastics as there were in Rome, which counted at 
that time 12,000 ! " 



MONASTICISM IN NAPLES. 131 

We had, moreover, in Italy alone, 269 archbishops 
and bishops, which number is equal nearly to one-half 
the sees of all of Europe, and is nothing less than one- 
third the number in the entire Catholic world, which is, 
only some 815. 

If to these 189,000 priests, living in Italy, we add 
the Italian priests, who are distributed over the whole 
face of the earth, on the different missions, and also the 
acolytes, or young priests, who are taking orders, the 
novitiates of both sexes, and the class of the so-called 
nuns of the city, we shall have a total of about 200,000, 
which is sufficient to afford one priest to every 46 
adults ! 

From general statistics we come finally to those of 
the city of Naples. The following will show how the 
secular clergy of this city were distributed twenty years 
ago, by rank and number : — 

Archbishops, ....... 3 

Bishops, ....... 7 

Chapters of Canons of Archbishoprics, . . 30 

College of the Seminarists, .... 18 

" Quarantisti " of the Metropolitan, . . . 22 
Chaplains of the Eoyal Chapel del Tesoro di San 

Gennaro, ...... 12 

Capitoli of Canons of San Giovanni Maggiore, . 15 

Carried over. 107 



132 MONASTICISM IN NAPLES. 

Brought up, 107 
Eectors dependent on the Archbishops, . 43 

Eoyal Chaplains and others with honorary titles, 34 
Priests, 3,027 

3,211 

The number of parishes in Naples amounts to more 
than 50 ; that of the churches to 257 ; of the " Confra- 
ternities" to 174; of "Congregations of the Holy 
Spirit," 8 ; chapels for evening service, 57. 

To the regular clergy we may be permitted to add, in 
tabular form, the entire enumeration, made at the same 
time, distributed by their different orders, by the num- 
ber of monasteries and convents, by sex, by the num- 
ber of persons, and by their rank. These are extracted 
from the authorized census, which was published about 
that time, in a work bearing the title of JVapoU e sue 
vidnanze. 



MONASTERIES. 



133 



MONASTEEIES. 







i 


Number of Persons per 




Monasteries. 


Religious 
Orders. 




1 

3 
1 


1 


1 


1 

a 


1 




'diGerusalemme a Montecalvario, 




11 










aSanPietroadAram, . 




94 








Ee/ormati, ■ 


alia Salute, 

aMiano, 

.a Santa Chiara, .... 


5 


38 
11 
7 




161 




■ a Santa Lucia del Monte, 




101 








Alcantarini, < a San Pasquale a Chiaia, . 


3 


49 


8 


197 


8 


iallaSanita .... 




47 








ra Sant' Efrem Vecchio, . 




25 








Cappuccini, < a Sant' Efrem Nuovo, . 


3 


66 


6 


^7 


6 


[alleTrentatrfe 




6 








a San Francesco a Santa Maria 












Osservanti, < laNuova, .... 


2 


197 


7 . 


233 


7 


in San Severe Maggiore, . 




36 








Agostiniani calzi, Sant' Agostino la Zecca, • 


1 


41 


1 


41 


1 


Agostiniani calzi, fa Santa Maria Maddalena 












de' Spagnuoli, 




30 








Id. scalzi, a Santa Maria del la Verita, 


3 


20 




67 




Id. calzi, i a San Carlo aUe MorteUe, 




7 








/ a Caravaggio, .... 
BernaUti, \ 

I a Pontecorvo, .... 


2 


10 
12 




22 




Cassinesi a San Severino, 


1 


6 




« 




CamaJeZoZesi Eremo del Salvatore, . 


1 


28 




28 




Total carried forward, 


21 


842 


22 


842 


22 



12 



134 



MONASTERIES. 



MONASTERIES. 





1 

i 


Number of persons per 




Monasteries. 


Belip..u3 

Order-. 




1 


i 

1 


1 


1 
1 


Brought forward, 




842 


22 


842 


22 


Canonici Lateranensi, a Santa Maria di Piedi- 












grotta, .... 




16 


2 


16 


2 


Carmelitani calzi, al Carmine Maggiore, . 




35 


2 


35 


2 


t a Santa Teresa a Cliiaia, ) 

Carmel. scalzi, \ > 

i a Santa Teresa agU Studi, ) 




7 
38 




45 




Certosinz, a San Martino, 




20 


3 


20 


3 


CMerici Eegolare Minori, di San Francesco 












Caracciolo, . 




15 


7 


15 


7 


Chierici Beg. t a Santa Maria in Portico, ^ 
SempUci, ( a Santa Brigida, J 




19 
11 


6 


30 


6 


Sacra Famiglia di G. C. detta de' Cinesi, . 




33 


34 


33 


34 


Padri ddla c nella Casa de' Yergini, ^ 
Missione, i a San Nicola Torentino, ) 




45 
12 


13 
16 


67 


29 


Congregazione del Santissimo JRedentore, a S. 












Antonio di Tarsia, 




16 




16 




Minore Corwentuali, a San Lorenzo Maggiore, . 


2 


59 


8 


63 


8 


Idem. Ospizio a Largo Santa Cate- 












rinaaChiaia, 




4 








( a' Mannesi, > 

Crociferi, \ t - • 

( a Porta San Gennaro, ) 


2 


9 
6 


2 

1 


15 


3 


Dottrinarl, nella casa di San Nicola de' Caserti, 


1 


10 


29 


10 


29 


Total carried forward, 


38 


1197 


145 


1197 


145 



MONASTERIES. 



135 



MONASTERIES. 





.s 

1 

1 

a 


Number of Persons 


per 




Monasteries. 


Keligious 
Orders. 




1 


1 
1 


1 


1 


Brought forward, 


38 


1197 


145 


1197 


146 


r a S. Domenico Maggiore, ) 

Domenicani, i > 

i a San Pietro Martire, b 


2 


65 
11 


3 


76 


3 


Compagnia di Gesii, 


1 


117 




117 




Mercedarii, a Sant' Orsola a Chiaia, . 


1 


16 




16 




Minimi di S. ( al Largo di Palazzo, ^ 
Fr. di Paola, \ aUa Stella, ) 


2 


10 


2 






14 


7 






( a San Nicola aUa Carita, ) 
Pii Operai, \ i • • 
( a San Giorgio Maggiore, J 


2 


18 
9 


1 


27 


1 


Padri deW Oratorio o Filippini, a' Gerolomini, 


1 


28 


6 


28 


6 


/STcoZcfpi, a San Carlo a Mortelle, 


1 


32 




32 




San Giovanni di Dio, alia Pace, .... 


2 


22 


3 


27 


3 


Santa Caterina, ad Colles, .... 




5 








Chierici Begolari Teatini, a San Paolo, 


1 


26 


3 


26 


3 


Congregazione del Beato Pietro da Pisa, a Santa 












Maria deUe Grazie Maggiore, . 


1 


18 


6 


18 


6 


Total, 


52 


1588 


176 


1588 


176 



136 



CONVENTS. 



CONVENTS. 









1 


Number of persons per 


' 


Nunneries. 


Belifrfous 
Orders. 














1 




1 
i 


1 


1 


■ a Santa Caterina di Siena, "l 




29 


12 






Domenicane, i a San Giovanni, I 


3 


59 


7 


146 


39 


.alia Sapienza, J 




58 


20 








San Francesco Iscariota alla^ 
















Florentine, 






45 


2 






Francescane, ■ 


a Donna Kegina, 






69 


3 


234 


24 




a Santa Maria del Gesu, 




4 


42 


7 








aSantaChiara, 






78 


12 






{ a San Francesco a Pontecorvo, ) 

Cappuccine, } > 

(aTrentatrfe, S 


2 


29 
31 


12 


60 


12 


Teresiane, Santa Teresa alia Salita del Vomero, 


1 


21 




1 


21 


Concezioniste, al Divine Amore, , 


1 


35 


9 


35 


9 


fa Donnalbina, "] 




43 


6 






Benedettine, < a San Gregorio Armeno, > 


3 


56 


20 


132 


32 


[aSantaPatrizia, J 




33 


6 






Sagramentiste, Adoratrici perpetue, 


1 


96 


2 


96 


2 


Carmelitane, Santa Croce di Luca, 


1 


85 


10 


85 


10 


Teatine, Suor Orsola, 


1 


40 




40 




Bomite, Suor C 
Canonichesse 1 


rsola, 




1 
1 


22 
11 


1 

10 


22 
11 


1 


Mteranensi, a Gesii Maria, 




10 


fS. Maria Egiziaca Mag. 1 




47 


7 






Agostiniane, -j Santa Monica, I 


3 


28 


13 


117 


31 


[ S. Andrea deUe Monache, J 




44 


11 






Sorelledella r Eegina Coeli, i 
Carita, \ Costantinopoli, J 


2 


87 
8 


160 








Total 


, 


24 


1096 


330 


979 


191 



MONASTICISM IN NAPLES. 137 

From the foregoing we find that there were, at the 
epoch of my entrance into the convent in Naples, per- 
sons who, by their religious vows to inertia and celibacy, 
or who were preparing themselves for that condition in 
life, no less than about 6,720, distributed as follows : — 

Priests and acolytes of the "Ordini Minori," . 3,507 

Monks and novitiates, . . . . 1,767 

Nuns, 1,094 

Educande (female pupils) , .... 352 



6,720 

To which number must be added the sisters scattered 
about in the different Conservatorii and Hitirii of the 
city ; and the class of converse, — a class remaining 
single, by the obligation of profession, if not by vows, 
and computed, approximately, at 2,000, — and we shall 
have a sum total of at least 9,000; which amounts to 
more than one-fiftieth part of the inhabitants of Naples, 
snatched away by the church, from social, industrial and 
domestic life. 

More than one in fifty ! Mercy ! what epidemic, 
what murderous calamity has ever decimated a people 
so fearfully ? 

Three cities alone of Italy — Eome, Naples and Pa- 
lermo — contain 30,000 citizens of the two sexes, stran- 
gers to the past, enemies of the present, and sterile to 
the future of their country I 



CHAPTER Vm. 



SCENES AND CUSTOMS IN THE CONVENT. 



Mental characteristics of the nuns — Extracts from an ancient chronicle — An 
account of the assassination of a Genoese merchant— The confession — Sub- 
stitution of priests for the monks at the confessional — I go to confession for 
the first time in the convent — Caresses from the priest on this occasion — 
Such caresses general— A change of confessors — SiUy twattle of the new 
canonico — Maddalena jealous — Endeavor to obtain still another confessor — 
Thwarted — A tempest in a teapot — Disreputable liaisons hetween the con- 
fessors and their penitents — Wiles employed by the former to corrupt the 
latter. 



Among the Benedictine convents of Naples, that of 
San Gregorio Armeno was the one which, at the period 
of my story, numbered the largest number of professed 
nuns. There were, in fact, fifty-eight there; a few 
well advanced in years ; the greater part young, or, at 
least, not old ; and all, it may be said, belonging to the 
most conspicuous, if not always the richest, fiimilies of 
Naples. I had, however, occasion to observe from the 
first day of my entrance into the convent, that the in- 
tellectual and moral status of these sisters did not at all 
correspond to the elevation of their birth. From the 
selfishness of unnatural parents or brothers, they had 
been destined, while yet in swaddling-clothes, to bury 
their minds, hearts, and personal charms in this soli- 
tude, and to immolate, less to religion than to the 

138 



MENTAL CHAEACTERISTICS OF THE NUNS. 139 

avarice of relatives, all their affections, even to filial ; 
and to make a solemn and inviolable renunciation of the 
duties and of the rights which bind the individual to 
the family, to the nation, and to humanity, without the 
least regard to the social inclinations, to the igneous 
temper, or to the fickleness of their hereditary characters. 
Educated with such motives ; taught to avoid every- 
thing that would by any chance expand. the sphere of 
their ideas, or discipline, or fertilize their minds, or 
socialize their habits ; informed on no other subjects in 
the world than of legends, miracles, visions, and the 
various phantasmagoria of ascetics, drawn from the 
reading of the musty old books which the Index Purga- 
torium has conceded for family reading ; never by any 
chance permitted, either in or out of the house to come 
in contact with any other than the members of their 
own families, or their own confessors; the nuns — the 
most illustrious of all the different orders, the Bene- 
dictines — I repeat, are as much wanting in the qualities 
which distinguish the v/ell-born woman, as they are des- 
titute of those which, in other more civilized society, 
render the religious character so estimable. 

Let the historian, or the philosopher, who cannot find 
in the faded pages of the chroniclers, or in the depraved 
fantasies of the sixteenth century, materials out of 
which to reconstruct to the life that infamous era which 
inaugurated and subjected Italy to the domination of 
strangers, — let him enter, if he can, into a convent of 



140 MENTAL CHARACTEKISTICS OF THE NUNS. 

women. Living and throbbing there, he will find, in 
spite of the reforms of Trent, the morals of the cen- 
tury of the Borgias, of the Medici, of the Farnesi ; the 
traditions of the courts of the Colonna, and of Pietro 
di Toledo ; the prejudices of the Norman and Arragonese 
feudalism, with the gross ignorance and superstitions 
of the vulgar at the epoch of the auto-da-fe. What 
museum of antiquities can display, equal to a Neapolitan 
convent, — so full of life and motion, — the relics of the 
middle ages, curiously framed on the carved entablature 
of the era of Charles V., the pictures of the "Divina 
Commedia," and of the " Decameron," restored by the 
pencils of Calderon de la Barca and Cervantes ? The 
funeral pall of the cloister has preserved this Necropolis 
uninjured, as the stratum lapilU preserves the papyri of 
Herculaneum, and the mummies of Pompeii ! 

My own experience of convent life confirms the 
judgment of the anonymous writer, who, in the preface 
to a " Chronique Scandaleuse"* of apocryphal memoirs, 
has traced the history of the Neapolitan nunnery. Nor 
are the manners of to-day so far reformed that these 
considerations of an author of by-gone times may not 
be applicable to the present. 

" At the period of the Norman domination," he writes, 
"the cloistral laws were introduced in all their vigor. 
The vows which some pious women pronounced were 
temporary and were renewed every year, with the priv- 

• Cronica del CoDTeuto di Sant Arcangelo a Bajano. 



AN ANCIENT CHRONICLE. 141 

ilege of selecting any other condition which might better 
suit them. These women then lived in a kind of relig- 
ious freedom, which united, as in the case of the Ger- 
man canouesses, the advantages of society, to the regula- 
tions of a pure and edifying life. They bore the title of 
oblate (lay sisters) , lived retired from the world, which 
they could re-enter at any moment, if they felt a desire 
do so. 

" The absence of all contact with the world was no 
source of irritation either to the senses, or the imagina- 
tion. Far from shrinking at the idea of solitude, it 
enabled them to contemplate with pleasure the possibility 
of returning to the world. 

" The interior of such a convent was, for. these reasons, 
an abode of decency and order, where that agreeable 
serenity reigned, which always accompanies a pure 
Christianity, which is a type of the poetic and the moral 
and an inappreciable quality in woman. In the absence 
of any sentiment more tender, confidence and friendship 
reigned among these women whose virtues would have 
rejected every worldly passion. 

" The woman who desired to join the community was 
compelled to maintain herself at her own expense, until 
the moment in which, becoming contented with that life, 
she resolved to unite with the community and become a 
nun, and from that time she received from the establish- 
ment everything that was necessary to her. The su- 
perintendence of the whole was confided to the best 



142 AN ANCIENT CHRONICLE. 

and wisest women in the convent, and the king con- 
firmed the selection, which secured his protection to 
the establishment. 

"During the reign of the House of Anjou, these 
women were the most perfect models of all the virtues, 
united to talents which were the fruit of a liberal edu- 
cation ; but under the reign of Ferdinand, the Catholic, 
and of Charles V., when the highest privileges were 
bestowed on hypocrisy and the external semblance of 
piety, a marked change came over the relations which 
the nuns maintained with the people of the world. 

" The disorder increased in proportion as the turbu- 
lence incident to wars and the vices of the delegated 
power threw the country into the arnachy of an oli- 
garchy. It was then that the most potent, those who 
were invested with distinctions and resplendent with the 
brilliancy of the courts, were permitted to seduce these 
pious women, belonging to the first families, and after- 
wards to hand them over to the officers of the army, 
when the brilliancy of arms was found to bear away the 
palm from the magnificence and gallantry of the court. 
In this manner the seductions of love succeeded by cor- 
ruption took possession of the minds of a host of youth- 
ful beauties, whose hitherto pure and spotless hearts had 
been, until now, inaccessible to aught but friendship and 
the sentiments which virtue inspires. 

"It was at this time that the government not taking 
its stand upon constituted bases, but rather on the priv- 



AN ANCIENT CHRONICLE. 143 

ileges and exemptions of the nobility, of the clergy, and 
the court of Rome, yielded to circumstances, and, impo- 
tent to prevent it, saw a multitude of its subjects perish 
before its eyes, victims of the reaction of so many 
powers, or saw them elude the chief of these, — that 
which emanated from the throne. 

" The Aulic council passed judgment on the individuals 
that belonged to the court and the army ; the clerical 
body had its own tribunal, which appealed to the court 
of Eome, and the monastic bodies depended directly upon 
it. The Archbishop of Naples and the Nuncio had their 
own prisons, in which they incarcerated any male or 
female who was subject to the church, and often secreted 
in them those they wished to screen from the sovereign 
power. Every church, convent, and feudal palace en- 
joyed the privileges of a sanctuary, and retained in its 
pay the most notorious bravos. A correspondence be- 
tween Naples, Eome, and Sicily, by the means of boats 
which navigated the Tiber, carried on all the operations 
of the government and managed all intrigues ; and it 
might be possible to prove, perhaps, that without the 
intervention of the Eoman Curia, the memorable Sicilian 
Vespers would never have taken place. When these 
dark agencies did not succeed to secure the escape of 
any one who was guilty, a papal bull was sure to arrive, 
taking the accused from the hands of justice and turning 
him over to the priests. 

" Oftentimes an inhuman father, capricious and ava- 



144 AN ANCIENT CHRONICLE. 

ricious, and assisted by the authority of the nuncio, or 
of the bishop, would throw his daughter, whose support 
caused him embarrassment, or the wife, whose fidelity 
was suspected, into a convent. When the honor of a 
noble damsel was publicly compromised, and when her 
accomplice was not positively known to her relatives, 
she and the man on whom their suspicions fell were 
either assassinated and buried, or imprisoned secretly ; 
or, finally, when disposed to try gentleness and moder- 
ation, the young girl was sent out of the world, and the 
man, emasculated, was compelled to enter the monastery 
and pronounce the vows. 

''In those days the condition of women, here, was 
worse, perhaps, than it is now in Turkey. The mere 
shadow of suspicion ; a calumnious accusation ; a hallu- 
cination begot by jealousy ; the false deposition of a 
rejected lover ; sufficed to assemble, in all haste, a fam- 
ily council, under the same mysterious circumstances in 
which the Spanish Inquisition was wont to envelop its 
tribunal, when it would thunder against the accused 
that sentence which, according to the prejudices of the 
period, could alone wipe off the stain from the family 
escutcheon, in the public eye. Nor, to wash away the 
stain, often imaginary, did they know, or seek to know, 
any other means than through blood. Conformably to 
this barbarous code, the woman, if living in the house, 
was stabbed or strangled in her own bed ; if marriage- 



ASSASSINATION OF A GENOESE MERCHANT. 145 

able, she was condemned to the civil death of convent 
seclusion, or destroyed by poison. 

"The whole peninsula was utterly incapable of offer- 
ing any escape to the man on whose head fell the suspi- 
cions of the domestic inquisition. The hand of the 
hired assassin, armed with the traitorous dagger, would 
have followed him to Eome, to Florence, to Milan, and 
even to the more liberal soil of Venice ; would have 
found him in the inmost recesses of the remotest mon- 
astery ; would have transfixed him at the foot of the 
altar itself ! This thirst for arbitrary reintegration was 
very imperious ; it was so thoroughly incarnated in the 
prejudices of the century that more than one cardinal 
has placed the dagger in the hands of the assassin, — 
more than one pope has given free vent to the vengeance 
of his nephews." 

In proof of similar horrors, I could extract, from the 
nupublished chronicles of the past, innumerable exam- 
ples not unworthy to figure some day on the pages of 
the author who shall write the Misteri delV Italia fatta 
serva. I shall limit myself, however, to a single case ; 
one that is related in the memoirs of the celebrated 
Fulvia Caracciolo, author of the before-mentioned chron- 
icle, and of the lugubrious annals of San Gregorio Ar- 
meno. I shall reproduce it here, as it is found in the 
inedited chronicle, where it bears the following title : — 
13 



146 ASSASSINATION OF A GENOESE MERCHANT. 

^^ Historie particolan di alcuni sitccessi tragici avvemUi 
in JVapoli ed altrove a' ITapoletani. 

" Giovanni Battista Lomellino, a noble Genoese, was 
in Naples, engaged in mercantile affairs, as is the custom 
of that people. He was rich and accomplished, and be- 
came enamored of a damsel of the Berardini family, 
daughter of Fulvia Caracciolo, and demanded her hand 
in marriage. But, notwithstanding the pledge of the 
vicero}^ she was denied to him by her relatives, on which 
account he determined to take her without their consent. 

"By means of large presents of jewels to the girl 
(which he contrived means to convey to her by one oi 
her servants, who was also corrupted by presents), he 
induced her to accompan}^ him to a notary ; but that 
officer, as soon as he had drawn the marriage contract, 
notified the relatives of the girl, who was called Diana, 
and they, on examiniug the witnesses, found that Lo- 
mellino had been introduced into the house, one even- 
ing, as the husband of the girl. Incensed by this to a 
still greater degree, they found several assassins, who, 
on Sunday, August 9, 1578, hired a carriage and drove 
by the house of Lomellino and called out to him by 
name, and he, appearing at the window, one of them 
fired an arquebus, the contents of which lodged in his 
head, and, without uttering a word, he fell dead. 

" The assassins again entered their carriage, and at- 
tempted to escape ; but, the police coming up, they 



THE CONFESSIONAL. 147 

were capprehended, imprisoned, and confessed their 
crime ; the one who committed the murder was hung at 
four o'clock the same day, in front of the house of Lo- 
mellino, and Diana was placed in the convent of San 
Gregorio, where she ultimately took the veil." 

But I am forgetting that I had promised concrete 
facts, rather than arguments. Let us resume, then, the 
thread of my own story. 

What is the great distinction, the characteristic trait, 
which distinguishes the convent from the monastery ? 

It is the CONFESSION. 

In the year 1571, by order of the Archbishop Carafa, 
it was imposed on all convents, subject to his jurisdic- 
tion, to exclude the monks from the confessional, and 
to receive no other confessors in future than the secular 
priests. "This change," says the chronicle of Sister 
Fulvia, " displeased us all ; either because they (the 
monks) were possessed of so much learning, or that we 
could not be persuaded that the secular priests could, at 
so short notice, qualify themselves thus easily with the 
wisdom necessary to the proper exercise of these duties." 

The result of this change was that, on the subject of 
confession, there was no longer any conformity of opinion 
and sentiment between the monk and the nun. 

A service, so simple and easy of practice as this sac- 
rament is for the monks, is not so light an affair for the 



148 THE CONFESSIONAL. 

nuns. The business of the confession absorbs their en- 
tire time and thoughts day and night, concentrates their 
sentiments, and furnishes to their recreations an inex- 
haustible stimulant. In course of time, the confession 
becomes for them the condition sine qua non of their 
existence ; the occult science which is learned in the 
silence of the cell, in part from personal experience, and 
in part by mute teachings ; a species of camorra, which 
has its adepts, its tacit regulations, its chiefs, and its 
penal code. 

Can you suppose the existence of a council in the con- 
vents, able to suppress the suj)reme benefits of the 
confessional ? The Italian nation can well dispense with 
the proposed law for the suppression of these institu- 
tions ; at least, so far as the nuns are concerned, for the 
convents must, it seems to me, in a very short period of 
time, dissolve of themselves. 

Prior to entering the convent, and during the festiv- 
ities of Christmas, my mother had assigned mc fur 
confessor the same priest who confessed my aunt Lucre- 
tia. He was an old man, a rustic and a scold ; but, at 
heart, a good priest. Accustomed to approach him rev- 
erently and submissively, I regarded him, not as a man, 
but rather as a minister of divinity. lie came to confess 
me every Monday. 

I found the confessionals in the convent, constructed 
like small cabinets, carefully curtained on all sides, and 



THE CONFESSIONAL. 140 

furnished with a stool, on which the penitent could sit at 
her ease. 

I inquired why the nuns seated themselves during 
confession, and was told that, it not being possible for 
them to remain two or three hours on their knees, they 
were only now required to kneel at the moment of re- 
ceiving the sacrament. 

" How ! " I exclaimed, in astonishment, " are two or 
three hours necessary to tell the confessor that you have 
not wished, nor indeed been able, to commit a sin dur- 
ing two or three days of cloistral life? What, then, 
must become of the poor people of the world, subjected- 
to so much rnore temptation than the recluse ? The ag- 
riculturist would surely have to desert his fields, and 
the nfechanic close his shop and convert it into a con- 
fessional, and spend the entire day on his knees ! " 

"We know very well," they replied, "that it is the 
custom of the people of the world to make a confession 
of only a few moments ; but we not only acknowledge 
our little sins, but we intend, besides, that our confes- 
sor, the person in whom we confide, and whom we have 
chosen for that purpose, should direct us in all the duties 
of our daily life. To him we confide our thoughts, our 
business, and our purposes, — he being our sole friend, 
and our only mediator between heaven, the world, and 
the cloister, which a nun is permitted to have. While 
separated from the world, we find, in the intimacy which 
subsists between us, a personification of the universe, in 
13* 



150 THE CONFESSIONAL. 

compensation for our solitude. In sliort, after God, 
the confessor is all in all for us. You yourself, — if you 
will only be induced to leave your old and demented 
confessor who has been assigned to you, and select one 
who is younger and better able to direct your thoughts, 
— you also will be able to spend a couple of hours in the 
confessional delightfully." 

"An exceedingly distasteful employment," I replied. 
*' I should much prefer a duet with Rossini on my piano- 
forte." 

In fact I already deplored the fatality which deprived 
me, among other things, of the pleasures derivable from 
music, and subjected me to the loss of practice on my 
instrument. 

A young nun, stout and brunette, with lively eyes, 
drew me aside, and said : — 

"I trust you will make no mention to your aunt, the 
abbess, of the subject of our conversation this morning, 
or of any future talk we may have on similar subjects." 

My confessor came the following day, and I disclosed to 
him the nature of the troubles which beset me. He told 
me that in the convent it was imperative to take the com- 
munion every day, and that it occupied nearly the whole 
day. I begged him to release me from such a practice, 
believing mj^self not worthy to approach the divine 
favor without preceding it by a confession. He replied 
that I must, at least, receive the communion twice a 



CONDUCT OF THE PRIEST. 151 

week for the present ; later I should be required to con- 
form to the custom of the convent. 

Later in the day, seeing that I had gone down to the 
comunichino, the conversa of my aunt Lucretia rang the 
bell for the priest to come with the pyx. He was a 
man of about fifty years of age, very corpulent, with a 
rubicund face, and a type of physiognomy as vulgar as 
it was repulsive. 

I approached the little window to receive the sacred 
wafer on my tongue, with my eyes closed, as is custom- 
ary. I placed it upon my tongue, and, as I drew back, 
I felt my cheeks caressed. I opened my pyes, but the 
priest had withdrawn his hand, and, thinking I had been 
deceived, I gave it no more attention. 

On the next occasion, forgetful of what had occurred 
before, I received the sacrament with closed eyes again, 
according to precept. This time I distinctly felt my 
chin caressed, and, on opening my eyes suddenly, I 
found the priest gazing rudely upon me, with a sensual 
smile on his face. 

There could be no longer any doubt ; these overtures 
were not the result of accident ! 

The daughter of Eve is endowed with a greater degree 
of curiosity than man. It occurred to me to place my- 
self in a contiguous apartment, where I could observe 
if this libertine priest was accustomed to take similar, 
liberties with the nuns. I did so, and was fully con- 
vinced that the old, only, left him without being ca- 



152 CONFESSORS. 

ressed. All the others allowed him to do with them as 
he pleased ; and even, in taking leave of him, did so 
with the utmost reverence. 

"Is this the respect," said I, to myself, "that the 
ministers and the ' spouses of Christ ' have for the sac- 
rament of the Eucharist ? Shall the poor novice be per- 
mitted to leave the world and to learn in this school 
such lessons in politeness and chastity ? " 

The sphere of my isolation was meanwhile contract- 
ing every day. My perseverance, in declaring that I 
would never* take the veil, was a source of irritation to 
the sisters. They unanimously agreed, and declared it 
to be the fault of my confessor, who, they said, did not 
know what means to employ to induce me to embrace 
the life of the cloister. 

"No, he is not suited to you," they said, "and the 
proof patent of his incapacity is seen by the very short 
time he remains with you in the confessional. He 
listens to you, but does not talk himself; then, without 
any spontaneous activity, he remains in a state of mere 
passive attention. Has he, for example, ever explained 
to you the difference between leading the life of the 
worldly, the greater part of whom fall into the shades 
of eternal darkness, and that of the religieuses, nearly 
all of whom arc saved ? " 

Indeed, the nuns gave me no peace ; this one ex- 
horted me, and another catechised me, all drawing their 



MADDALENA. 153 

arguments from the most boorish superstitious, and 
using the most barbarous vernacular, with which to ex- 
orcise the malign spirit which inspired me with an insur- 
mountable aversion to their society. One of the most 
fanatical among them, called Maddalena, came every 
evening to the room of my aunt Lucretia, with the 
determination to convert me at all hazards. Finding 
that the assaults of her sophisticated logic were unfruit- 
ful, she finally said : — 

" Will you grant me a favor ? " 

" Let me know what it is ? " I replied. 

" My confessor will come to-morrow. He is a ca- 
nonico, and has the learning of San Tommaso d' Aquinas, 
and the virtue of Francesco Caracciolo, your progenitor. 
One conference with him will be sufficient, I am sure, to 
expel from 3''ou that obstinacy which inspires you with 
such an aversion to take the veil." 

" Well, what must I say to him? " 

" State to him the reasons you have for abhorring the 
monastic life, and you shall hear his answers." 

Perceiving that I had no intention to surrender, she 
added : "Do you know that God, having once separated 
you from the world, in order to give you this opportunity 
to enter into his Holy Refuge, has given you a proof of 
his goodness, of which many other young ladies, who 
are your equals in society, cannot profit? He will one 
day call you to account for the disdain you now show 
for all these immense benefits. On the other hand, if 



15-1 MADDALEXA. 

yoii seek counsel of the servants of God, and your 
opinions still remain unchanged, you will have purged 
your mind from any scruples, and he will not reproach 
you for any negligence." 

Arguments like these, repeated every evening with 
increasing fervor and loquacity ; the oppressive atmos- 
phere of the cloister ; my youth, and ignorance of the 
priestly and monastical imposture ; and finally, the 
training I had received at home, which rendered me 
docile to my superiors, and civil to everj^body, induced 
me to yield to her earnest entreaties. 

The following morning Maddalena, delighted with 
her success, led me to her reverend confessor. The ex- 
altation of this nun seemed a reassuring index to me. 
If, in her relations with this priest, there had been 
anything of an equivocal character, would she have 
been so willing and so anxious that I should participate 
in her happiness ? 

" Are you not curious to experience the effects of an 
efficacious confession ?" she asked me, some moments 
before introducing me into the cabinet. 

" Curious in a superlative degree ! " I answered, smil- 
ing. 

In fact, my situation seemed to me similar to that of 
one who has been buried alive, and who, roused from 
his trance, goes groping about among the gloomy cata- 
combs where he is confined, in search of some road of 
escape. 



THE CANONICO. 155 

The canonico was a man of fifty years of age, with a 
countenance of great expression and mobility of feature. 
If he was not a Jesuit, no one could be more worthy to 
become one. After many salutations and compliments, 
he inquired my name, age, condition, and other similar 
particulars. Then, laying one of his legs over the 
other, and rubbing his hands, he said : — 

"I suppose, siguorina, that you have already deter- 
mined to become a nun ? " 

"No, reverend." 

" And why not ? " 

"Because the cloister oppresses me excessively." 

" In a little time you will become habituated to this 
sweet prison to such a degree that you will not willingly 
leave it. Have you not, then, entered the convent from 
choice ? " 

"No, I am forced to it by my mother." 

"Ah! forced by mamma." (Brief pause, during which 
the priest seemed to be immersed in profound medita- 
tion.) "Tell me, signorina, have you been in love?" 

" Twice." 

"What was the object of your love?" 

"To marry the persons loved." 

"This, and nothing else. Will you open your heart 
to me without reserve ? " 

"I had no other object than matrimony." 

" Have you ever sent letters to your lovers, or received 
any from them?" 



156 THE CANONICO. 

"Never." (I remembered the billet of Domenico.) 

" Have you had uo verbal ambassadors ? " 

"No." 

" How then did your love afiairs terminate ? " 

" I was forsaken by my lovers." 

" And your mother ? " 

" She was enraged that I was disposed to keep faith 
with my second lover." 

"Behold, then, my daughter," he exclaimed, "the 
difference between a wordly spouse and a heavenly one. 
The former have abandoned you, though you love them, 
while the latter has followed you, and faithfully follows 
you, while you care nothing for him and persist in re- 
pulsing him. The former have made a plaything of 
your existence, have courted the chalice of your youth ; 
the latter would heap on you unutterable joys ; he opens 
the doors of his house to you, introduces you to his 
family, embraces you in his arms with tenderness, and 
anxiously awaits you to make you forget, in the sublime 
comforts of his love, the discords of men." 

He continued a long time after this fashion, playing 
upon the same pipe, which was terribly tedious, and as 
I thought stupid. Finally, I interrupted him as fol- 
lows : — 

"Is it, or is it not true, that man was created for 
humanity ? If, as jon say, the family of Christ be re- 
stricted to this little community, why was the Son of God 
crucified for the salvation of the whole human race ? It 



THE CANONICO. 157 

has been said that to be contented with solitude, it is 
necQssary to be either God or brute. Now, your rever- 
ence, I have not yet arrived at the elevation of the 
Deity, nor yet to the condition of the brute. Hove the 
world and take pleasure in the society of my friends. 
Besides, I do not believe that you yourself have a 
horror of human society ; because, if it were so, would 
you not, ere this, have become a monk, at least, if not 
an anchorite of the Thebaid ! " 

"To these queries," said the canonico, rising and 
taking up his hat, " I will give you an answer at our 
next conference. Will you promise me to return again 
to confess to me ? " 

1 was obliged to reply affirmatively. I was now, be- 
sides, anxious to experiment with the renowned persua- 
sive abilities of this much-lauded canonico. 

Two days subsequently, he called me to him to say 
that he had been inspired in his prayers by the Holy 
Spirit, that he, himself, and no other ought to confess 
me. He intimated, too, that I should address a note to 
my old confessor, thanking him for the charity (in the 
monastic glossary, /ar /a carita, signifies confessing), 
and inform him that I had provided myself with a new 
confessor. I resisted this course; but the canonico, de- 
claring that the virtue most dear to God is that of obedi- 
ence to the cross, forbade me to go out of the room 
before promising him that I would send the letter imme- 
14 



158 LIADDALENA JEALOUS. 

diately after I retired, and it was finally written, though 
not without much grief on m}'- part. 

Now, if the change of confessor was a source of an- 
noyance to me, it was not less the occasion of furious 
indignation to Maddalena, who, desirous to extol the 
portentous eloquence of her own confessor, was, how- 
ever, very far from imagining that my conversion would 
demand more than one confession. I met her in the 
afternoon and, on seeing me, she became perfectly livid 
in the face and rudely turning her back upon me, mut- 
tering I know not what, uncourteously turned upon her 
heel and hurried away. 

" Maddalena behaves strangely," said another nun, who 
approached me soon after, who was also a friend of hers ; 
"did she not force her confessor upon you? and now 
she is crying and desperate with jealousy." 

"Jealousy!" I exclaimed, unable to restrain my 
laughter. " Jealous of whom ? " 

" The canonico, it seems, shows less attention to her 
now than to you ; and you have discharged your old 
confessor to become the penitent of the canonico." 

I was stupefied. Not being able to recall the old 
priest now that my letter had been sent to him, I wrote 
another to the canonico, in which I told him that, not 
having any intention to make enemies in the convent, I 
should provide myself with a new confessor. 

An hour later I heard the bell of the portress strike 
six times, which was the summons for me, and going to 



THE CANONICO DETEEMINED TO CONFESS ME. 159 

see what was the occasion, I found the cauonico in the 
parlatorio. 

" You have sent me my dismissal already," he said, 
laughing. 

"Yes," I replied, "I certainly do not desire to be a 
cause of discord in the convent during the brief time I 
shall remain here ; and having no intention, either, of 
being discourteous towards any one, I will not give to 
others any occasion to treat me with impertinence." 

"The fact is," added he, still laughing, "I do not de- 
sign to say anything about your letter to any one ; and 
to exempt you from all molestation on that account, I 
will announce to Maddalena that I do not wish to confess 
her any longer, and she will then have no farther occa- 
sion to exercise her ingenuity to discover whether I feel 
any affection for you or not. Mine be the sacred duty 
to conduct to the sheepfold the young lamb assigned by 
God to me, which has lost its way. lam not permitted 
to abandon you." 

" I cannot understand," I said, with some seriousness, 
" how jealousy can insinuate itself into the sacrament of 
confession, nor does it become me to inquire into the 
causes of this unqualifiable association. I can only tell 
you, that if you decline to confess Maddalena any longer 
it will only cause a still stronger persecution against me. 
I am determined, therefore, that from this time forth, 
I will not go to the confessional at all. " 

"Then," said he, laying aside his mirth, and as- 



160 TUMULT AMONG THE NUNS. 

suming a serious toue, *'I will employ another expe- 
dient." 

Saying this, he left me, in doubt what it was he pro- 
posed to do. 

Having, meanwhile, determined not to be driven from 
my position, I prayed my aunt, the abbess, to procure 
me another confessor, taking care that he should be an 
old man, and that he should have no other penitent in 
the convent. She willingly undertook the charge, for 
she was much grieved to see me placed in so embarrass- 
ing a situation without any fault of my own. 

It was about three o'clock in the afternoon, when I 
heard a great noise in the corridor. I went out and 
found Maddalena in the centre of a group of nuns and 
novices, where she had just arrived and was showing 
them a letter which she had just received. They were 
all talking, or I might more properly say screaming, to- 
gether, with the most extravagant gesticulations, re- 
minding one of the witch-scene in Macbeth. 

An affair of confession is oftentimes for the nuns 
what an affair of state is for a ministry — a casus 
belli. 

I readily understood that it could be nothing else she 
was showing than the letter of the canonico, and from 
the bottom of my heart, I cursed the moment which had 
brought me into this holy pandemonium. 

The noise went on increasing; the whole community 
of nuns assembled ; in the confusion of the revolt, but 



TUMULT AMONG THE NUNS. 161 

one single word could be distinguished, and that, a 
thousand times repeated, was the word "canonico." 

Meanwhile the old abbess, leaning upon the arm of 
one of the educande, came up to the scene of the riot to 
appease Maddalena, and promised her that the cauonico 
should no longer confess her niece and that she herself 
would find another confessor for her. 

" Will you give me your word' for that ? " cried the 
infuriated Maddalena, whilst the seventy other mouths 
around her remained closed, awaiting in silence the 
answer. 

"Hold me pledged," replied the abbess. 

"Brava ! brava ! " exclaimed the nuns in chorus. " It 
was insupportable to see him shut up in the confessional 
with another." 

And congratulating Maddalena on the recovery of her 
rights, they went away crying, " Justice is done at last ! 
.You may now be happy again ! " 

From this singular scene which will never be obliter- 
ated from my memory, I began to be convinced that the 
anxiety of the penitents for their confessors and the 
confessors for their penitents had its origin in certain 
sentiments not altogether conformable to the evangelical 
precexDt, ""Love thy neighbor as thyself" 

But this affair was not destined to terminate here. 
The argument of my confession had been written out, 
that it might receive solution by the eminent authority 
of the Eomau apostolic church ! 
14* 



162 INCIDENTAL INLVTTERS. 

The following morning I was summoned to the par- 
latorio. Who do you suppose was inquiring for me? 
It was Monsignore the Vicar ! What could he want of 
me? 

He came to say to me, that the canonico had been to 
him and had recounted the circumstances which had 
taken place between Maddalena and myself, and he, in 
his capacity of head of the Neapolitan church, had 
deemed it to be his duty to assign the canonico to me 
for a confessor and refuse him to Maddalena. To com- 
plete the comedy, the sanction of the Pope was not long 
wanting. 

My protests and my tears were of no avail. My aunt 
scolded me, affirming that the commands of the vicar 
must be obeyed without question or reply. 

I ascended to my room and wrote a long letter to my 
mother, recounting to her the whole story, and remind- 
ing her that at the end of the second mouth I lioped she 
would redeem her promise and take me out of the con- 
vent without a day's delay. 

Having entitled this chapter " Scenes and Customs," 
I will include in it some incidental matters which relate 
to this branch of my subject. They are events or facts 
which occurred either under my own observation in one 
of the four convents in which I lived, or which have 
been related to me from the experience of others who 
have resided in other Neapolitan convents. I shall do 



INCIDENTAL MATTERS. 163 

the same when I come to write of the three vows of the 
humility, chastity, and poverty of the nims. I adopt 
this com'se in order not to be obliged to return fre- 
quently to the same argument. 

The fanatical passion of the nuns for the priests and 
monks exceeds belief. That which especially renders 
their incarceration endurable is the illimitable oppor- 
tunity they enjoy of seeing and corresponding with the 
persons with whom they are in love. This freedom 
localizes them and identifies them with the convent so 
closely, that they are unhappy, when on account of any 
serious illness, or while preparing to take the veil, they 
are obliged to pass some months in the bosoms of their 
own families, in company with their fathers, mothers, 
brothers, and sisters ; it not being presumable that these 
relatives would permit a young girl to pass many hours 
each day in a mysterious colloquy with a priest or monk, 
and maintain with him this continual correspondence. 
This is a liberty which they can enjoy in the convent 
only. 

Many are the hours which the cloistered Heloise spends 
in the confessional, in agreeable pastime with her Abe- 
lard in cassock. It is only a pity that they do not 
understand a syllable of Latin ! 

Others, whose confessors happen to be old-, have in 
addition a spiritual director, with whom they amuse 
themselves a long time every day, tete-a-tete, in the par- 



164 DISKEPUTABLE LIAISONS. 

latorio. When this is not enough, they find opportuni- 
ties to simulate an ilhiess, in order to have him alone 
with them in their own rooms ! 

There are others again, who, without the intervention 
of their confessors, dare not even make out a list of their 
own dirty clothes for the washerwoman ! I knew one 
of these penitents who was in the habit of seeing her 
confessor three times a day ; in the morning he brought 
her food for her dinner ; later, coming to mass in the 
church, the penitent served him with coffee and biscuit ; 
and, after dinner,, they were always together again till a 
late hour, in order to make out (as she said) the account 
of what he had spent for her in the morning. Not con- 
tent with so many daily conferences, they kept up a 
constant correspondence by letter. 

Another nun had loved a priest ever since he had 
served in the church as an acolyte. Arriving at the 
priesthood he was made sacristan ; but his companions 
denouncing him for the intimacy which subsisted be- 
tween him and this nun, he was forbidden by his supe- 
riors ever to pass through the street in which the con- 
vent was situated. The nun had the romantic virtue to 
remain faithful to. him for sixteen years, in the course of 
which time she wrote to him every day and exchanged 
frequent presents, and they managed to meet from time 
to time secretly in the parlatorio. The superiors being 
finally changed, the nun, although she had now arrived 



DISREPUTABLE LIAISONS. 165 

at mature age, succeeded in securing him for her con- 
fessor. 

Then, to show her gratitude to her patron saint for 
the favor she had vouchsafed to her, shfe made numerous 
offerings of candles and of flowers to her, and dispensed 
confectionery to all the community, as is usual in the out- 
side world (Neapolitan) on the occasion of a marriage ; 
accepted the felicitations of the company, not even re- 
fusing some congratulatory madrigals; and, finally, 
constructed at her own expense a separate confessional, 
in order to have the free use of it themselves whenever 
they were inclined. 

A gentleman of rank, one day made a call on the 
abbess of the convent and showed her a letter wiich he 
had found in the street. It had been sent by one of the 
" Spouses of Christ " to a priest, and had been dropped 
in the street through the carelessness of the servant. 
The libidinous language of the writer had scandalized 
the conscience of the gentleman. A common courtesan 
would have made use of more modest language ! 

One Holy Thursday, late at night, I was in the coro, 
and saw a letter thrown out into the body of the church, 
which, after fluttering about in the air, fell at last at the 
foot of the Holy Sepulchre. It was a note which a 
novice was sending to an acolyte ! 



166 DISREPUTABLE LIAISONS. 

A young novice not having the means to incur the 
necessary expenses of the convent, it occurred to her to 
have recourse to the benevolence of an old confessor, 
who was very rich, with the intention of making some 
advances towards him until she could succeed in secur- 
ing the necessary amount of money, with the mental 
reservation, however, of substituting then a young man 
with whom she was already in close intimacy. 

The old man was tender-hearted but circumspect ; he 
made her many presents, but was stubborn about sup- 
plying the needed amount of money, having already 
perceived that she had a great many confabulations in 
the parlatorio with a rival much younger than himself. 
The novice was enraged, and dismissed the niggardly 
old fellow and took the young one for her confessor ; for 
which reason the one who had been repudiated worked 
himself up into a furious passion, and, consumed with 
jealousy, stationed himself at the door of the church the 
first day that his rival went to confess the penitent. 

"Prosit," he said, bitterly. 

"Yobis," answered the other, smiling. 

After a little while the old man died of a broken heart, 
and the young one, because he was poor, was supplanted 
by another, less fresh in age, but who had a brother who 
was a rich functionary. 

Another nun being somewhat infirm, her priest con- 
fessed her in her own room. After a time the invalid 



DISREPUTABLE LIAISONS. 167 

found herself in what is called an interesting situation, 
on which account the physician, declaring that her com- 
plaint was the dropsy, she was sent away from the 
convent. 

A young educanda was in the habit of going down 
every night to the convent burial-place, where, by a 
corridor which communicated with the vestry, she en- 
tered into a colloquy with a young priest attached to the 
church. Consumed by an amorous impatience, she was 
not deterred from these excursions either by bad 
weather or the fear of being discovered. 

She heard a great noise, one night, near her. In the 
thick darkness which surrounded her, she imagined that 
she saw a vampyre winding itself around her feet. She 
was so much overcome by fright that she died from the 
effects of it a few months later. 

The confessors of the community are selected by the 
superiors triennially for the use of such nuns and novices 
as have no one in particular to confess them, from among 
those priests who have arrived at an age unseemly for 
amorous intrigues. 

Now one of these, prior to his nomination, had a 
young penitent in the convent. Every time he was 
called to visit a dying sister, and on that account passed 
the night in the convent, this nun would climb over the 



168 WELES USED BY CONEESSOES. 

partition which separated her room from his, and betake 
herself to the master and director of her soul ! 

Another, during the delirium of a typhus fever, from 
Avhich she was suffering, was constantly imitating the 
action of sending kisses to her confessor, who stood l)y 
the side of her bed. He, covered with blushes, on ac- 
count of the presence of strangers, held a crucifix before 
the eyes of the penitent, and, in a commiserating tone, 
exclaimed : — 

" Poor thing, kiss thy own Spouse ! " 

Under the bonds of secrecy, an educanda, of fine 
form and pleasing manners, and of a noble fiimily, con- 
fided to me the fact of her having received, from the 
hands of her confessor, a very interesting l)ook (as she 
described it), which related to the monastic life. I ex- 
pressed a wish to know the title, and she, before show- 
ing it to me, took the precaution to lock the door. 

It proved to be La Monaca (the nun), by Diderot, a 
book, as all know, filled with the most disgusting ob- 
scenity, and, in the hands of an innocent young girl, 
there is no book in the world more pernicious. In a 
subsequent conversation with her, having discovered the 
character of the book, I suggested to her that she had 
better not read it, and that she would do Avell to return 
it immediately to the party who gave it to her. But 
what was my surprise to hear her say that that sort of 



WILES USED BY CONEESSOES. 169 

reading was not new to her ! By the favor of her con- 
fessor, she had already devoured, and even for the 
fourth time, another scandalous volume, entitled, la 
Cronica del monastero di Sanf Angela a Bajano, a book 
which was at that time prohibited by the police ! 

I received once, myself, from an impertinent monk, a 
letter, in which he signified to me that he had hardly 
seen me when " he conceived the sweet hojpe of becoming 
my confessor." An exquisite of the first water, a fop 
of scents and euphuism, could not have employed 
phrases more melodramatic, to demand whether he might 
hope or despair. 

A priest, who enjoyed the reputation of being an in- 
corruptible sacerdote, when he saw me pass through the 
parlatorio, used to address me as follows : — 
"Ps, dear, come here ! Ps, ps, come here !" 
The word dear, addressed to me by a priest, was 
nauseous in the extreme. 

Finally, another priest, the most annoying of all for 
his obstinate assiduity, sought to secure my affections at 
all cost. There was not an image profane poesy could 
afibrd him, nor a sophism he could l)orrow from rhet- 
oric, nor wily interpretation he could give to the word 
of God, which he did not employ to convert me to his 
wishes. Here is an example of his logic : — 

15 



170 WILES USED BY CONTESSOES. 

"Fair daughter," said he to me one day, "knowest 
thou who God truly is ? " 

"He is the Creator of the universe," I answered, 
drily. 

"No, no, no, no! that is not enough," he replied, 
laughing at my ignorance. " God is love ; but love in 
the abstract, which receives its incarnation in the mutual 
affection of two hearts which idolize each other. Yoii, 
then, must not only love God in his abstract existence, 
but must also love him in his incarnation, that is, in the 
exclusive love of a man who adores you ; quod Deus 
est amor, neccolitur, nisi amando.'" 

"Then," I replied, "a woman who adores her own 
lover would adore divinity itself ? " 

" Assuredly ," reiterated the priest, over and over again, 
taking courage from my remark, and chuckling at what 
seemed to him to be the effect of his catechism. 

"In that case," said I, hastily, "I should select for 
my lover rather a man of the world than a priest." 

" God preserve you, my daughter ! God jDreserve 
you from that sin," added my interlocutor, apparently 
frightened. "To love a man of the world, a sinner, a 
wretch, an unbeliever, an infidel ! Wh}'', you would go 
immediately to hell. The love of a priest is a sacred 
love, while that of the profone is infamy ; the faith of 
a priest emanates from that granted to the Holy Church, 
while that of the profane is false, false as is the vanity 
of the century. The priest purifies his affection daily, 



WILES USED BY COiSTFESSORS. 171 

in communion with the Holy Spirit ; the man of the 
world (if he ever knows love at all) sweeps the muddy 
crossings of the street with it day and night." 

"But it is the heart, as well as the conscience, which 
prompts me to fly from the priests," I replied. 

"Well, if you will not love me because I am your 
confessor, I will find means to assist you to get rid of 
your scruples. We will place the name of Jesus Christ 
before all our affectionate demonstrations, and thus our 
love will be a grateful offering to the Lord, and will 
ascend fragrant with perfume to heaven, like the smoke 
of the incense of the sanctuary. Say to me, for exam- 
ple : I love you in Jesus Christ ; this night I dreamed 
of you in Jesus Christ ; and you will have a tranquil 
conscience, because, in doing this, you will sanctify every 
transport." 

Several circumstances, not indicated here, by the way, 
compelled me to come in frequent contact with this 
priest afterwards, and I do not, therefore, give his 
name. 

Of a very respectable monk, respectable alike for his 
age and his moral character, I inquired what signified 
the prefixing the name of Jesus Christ to amorous apos- 
trophes. 

"It is," said he, "an expression used by a horrible 
sect, and one, unfortunately, only too numerous, which 
thus, abusing the name of our Lord, permits to its 
members the most unbridled licentiousness." 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE MIRACULOUS BELL. 

I put on the dress of the educanda — Endeavor to hold my mother to her promise 
to take me out of the convent — My confessor and Ihe nuns solicitous to retain 
me — Ridiculous stories told to persuade or frighten me to remain — They ad- 
dress me anonymous letters — Nervous condition superinduced by these annoy- 
OJices — I hear the miraculous bell — The convent in confusion— T)ie nuns 
declare it to be th« bell of Saint Benedetto calling me — Heave the convent — 
Letters from my sisters at Reggio — They tell me that my mother is about to 
marry again, and no other home offering to me, I am persuaded to return to 
the convent — The die east— The fatal YES I— I am received at the convent 
with the ringing of bells and the firing of mortaletti— Reflections — Interview 
with my aunt, the abbess — Final determination to sacrifice myself — Newspa- 
per announcement of the fact — Ceremony of taking the white veil — Protest 
of the English gentleman against cutting off my hair. 

On the 21st of March, the day. dedicated to Saint 
Benedetto, I assumed the habit of the educanda. The 
nuns did not insist on my putting on this costume 
before, on account of the recent deatli of my father, in 
respect for whose memory I had worn mourning. 

The ceremony of takmg this dress is very simple. 
The tunic, lying in a glove box, was brought into the 
church and deposited upon the altar of San Benedetto. 
Then the canonico said mass, blessed the dress, and I 
put it on. 

It was made of ordinary woollen material, with sleeves 
close-fitting at the Avrists, and a little hood suspended on 
the back; an apron of white muslin, and for the neck 

172 . 



EFFOETS TO LEAVE THE COlSrVENT. 173 

a handkerchief of the same material. My hair was 
dressed iu the plainest manner to cover my ears and was 
kept up by a comb. This manner of dressing the hair 
and the heavy shoes I was compelled to wear, occa- 
sioned me the greatest displeasure and discomfort. 

The mass being finished, the canonico went up to the 
parlatorio to see me in my new dress and congratulated 
me on my appearance. 

But the arguments of my confessor had not succeeded 
in dissuading me from the design of leaving the convent, 
and his assiduity in repeating them , two or three times a 
week, far from inspiring me with any desire to embrace 
the monastic life, only added disgust to my repugnance 
for it. 

I did not neglect, meanwhile, to write to my mother, 
indefatigably supplicating her to keep her promise to 
me ; but her answers were only weak responses to my 
desires. In the month of March, she said that one of 
her little daughters was ill ; in April, referring to the 
death of aunt Lucretia, which had recently occurred, 
she said it would not appear well for me to leave my 
aunt, the abbess, thus soon ; in the month of May she 
neglected to reply to my letters at all ; and in June, I 
was myself taken ill. General Salluzzi, Josephine, 
and one of my elder sisters, who was then in Naples, 
unanimously resented this neglect on the part of my 
mother, in a letter to her. She replied that she was 
unable to come to Naples herself, but that a lady friend 

15* 



174 DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY. 

of hers, of Messina, was then in Naples, and would re- 
turn soon, and that she would take charge of me and 
accompany me on the voyage to jNIessina ; and that she 
would meet me at that place, herself. 

The receipt of this letter overwhelmed me with joy ! 
To return to Reggio ; to recover my liberty ; to see 
Domenico again ! It brought to my mind the sigh of 
Dante, 

" Liberta vo cercando, ch' e si cara, 
Come sa cM per lei vita rifluta." * 

My confessor discovering the state of my feelings, de- 
clared it sinful; the nuns called me ungrateful to God, 
to San Benedetto, and to them ; and during all the time 
that the Messina lady remained in Naples, they com- 
pletely exhausted their repertory of absurd stories about 
a person who fell into damnation for not having listened 
to the voice of God, who called her to the cloister; 
about a Bambino (infant) of wood, which stood with its 
little foot raised in the act of giving a kick to M. C, an 
educanda who had left the convent; of some blows 
given by the statuetta of San Benedetto on the pave- 
ment in its niche ; of the apparitions of souls in pur- 
gatory ; of witches ; of vampyres ; of demons ; and, in 
short, of everything absurd and altogether new to me. 
I was tormented with similar fables, properly, rather 



•Liberty I am seeking; wliat Is so dear, he only knows who for her sake re- 
fuses life. 



EFFORTS TO KETAIN ME. 175 

du hon vieux temps of the Crusades, than belonging to 
our own day ; not less calculated to demoralize the mind 
than to debase the conscience and the heart, and I had 
ample reason to pray Heaven to preserve to me the use 
of my poor reason. 

Meanwhile the day of my liberation was approaching. 
Two days prior to that destined as the one on Avhich I 
was to take leave of the convent, as I fondly hoped for- 
ever, a letter was brought to me. I opened it ; it was 
anonymous and began with this phrase : — " Read it at 
the foot of the crucifix" 

The writer represented himself as " one in whose mind 
my danger had inspired pity. The resolution to repudi- 
ate the monastic life, it appeared to him, was the work 
of Satan, who had taken the pledge to draw me with him 
to hell. On account of my long obstinacy, God had 
abandoned me to the claims of the devil ; but that there 
was yet time to make amends for the past if I would re- 
main in the convent. He concluded by saying, that if I 
should dare to stir out of the convent, I would be pushed 
back by invisible hands, at which signs of the divine in- 
tervention, if I should not be dissuaded, he (the writer) 
would be my inexorable accuser before God in the day 
of judgment." 

On examining the handwriting, it did not seem entirely 
unknown to me. I looked over my papers, but did not 
find anything written by the same hand. However, I 
was very sure of having seen something like it before, 



176 EFFORTS TO RETAIN JIE. 

somewhere. I asked the porteress who bro Light the 
letter, and she replied : — 

" Some one unknown to me ; who, placing it in the 
rack, ran off in haste." 

In the angle of the arched corridor, there was a little 
chapel dedicated to Saint Antimo, a saint of Basiliaa 
origin. Passing here that same day, in company with 
my aunt, I observed, hanging upon the wall, a MS. 
prayer. I approached it, and, examining it carefully, dis- 
covered that the handwriting was entirely similar to that 
of my anonymous correspondent, and it was the remem- 
brance of this which had been in my mind before. I 
reconducted my aunt to the coro and turned to look for 
the conversa, to inquire to whom the little chapel be- 
longed. 

I discovered then that the prayer had been written by 
that yoimg priest, who, on seeing me pass through the 
parlatorio, was accustomed to chirrup, " Ps, dear, come 
here." 

My mother had, meanwhile, directed that on my 
egress from the convent, I should go to the house of my 
oldest sister and there wait for the lady who was to ac- 
company me to Messina. 

On account of the fantastical prattle with which the 
priests and the nuns entertained me the whole day, my 
sleep was very much disturbed at night by frightful ap- 
paritions of spectres, of demons, and of holy relics. 



THE MIRACULOUS BELL. 177 

On the night which preceded the day of my egress, the 
anxiety which I felt, kept me awake to a very late hour. 
While lying in my bed half asleep and half awake, I 
thought I heard the ringing of a little bell. I arose, 
incontinently opened my eyes and listened attentively ; 
the silence was profound. 

Shortly after, I related this story to one of the nuns, 
and she began immediately to cry and make the sign of 
the cross ; shrieking at the top of her voice : — 

" A miracle ! a miracle I " 

" Who has worked the miracle?" I inquired. 

"Do you not understand it? It is the little bell of 
San Benedetto, who calls you ! " 

Half an hour later the entire convent was in an up- 
roar; the nuns, converse, and educande talked of 
nothing else but the miracle, and already began to speak 
of having a special mass destined to perpetuate the 
memory of the event in the annals and pageants of the 
convent. 

But notwithstanding the mysterious tinkling, I still 
remained firm in my determination to leave the convent. 
At the hour fixed, I embraced my old aunt affectionately, 
and crossed the threshold of the convent with a feeling 
of exultation; and, after visiting Josephine, whom I had 
not seen for some time, on account of her infirmity, I 
went to the house of my eldest sister, where I waited 
ten days for the hour of departure. 

But it was already written in the book of fate, that 



178 CONDITION OUT OF THE CONVENT. 

my r^lemption was to be only of short duration. About 
this time I received two letters from Reggio. They were 
from my two married sisters living there, who urged me 
by all means to return to the abandoned convent. The 
reasons which induced them to give me this counsel 
were exceedingly distressing. My mother was about to 
marry again. Domenico, forgetful of his love for me, 
and indifferent to my misfortunes, had dedicated himself 
to another woman ; besides, in the event of my coming 
to Reggio, I would run the risk of being consigned to 
a provincial rather than a metropolitan convent. 

This unfortunate state of affairs terrified me. At one 
blow the condition of orphanage, with all its loneliness, 
was discharged upon my head. 

After considering for a long time the critical condition 
of the situation in which the news placed me, I deter- 
mined, though reluctantly, to ask my brother-in-law to 
allow me to remain in his family until it should please 
God to procure me other refuge ; and he very kindly 
consented. 

I determined then, that, when the Messina lady should 
come to take me with her, I would tell her that she 
might go home alone. I did so, and she went without 
me. 

But eight days subsequently I received a letter from 
my mother, in which she expressed great astonishment 
at my not coming to Messina, as she had directed me to 
do. She had gone there herself at the appointed time 



CONDITION OUT OF THE CONVENT. 179 

to receive me, as she expected, and she was now in a 
fury. 

This was not enough. The minister of police cited 
my brother-in-law at the same time to appear before 
him, and ordered him to see that I started at once for 
Eeggio, conformably to the wishes of my mother. 

"My dear sister," said this honest man, after receiv- 
ing this admonition, "I have cheerfully offered you the 
hospitality of my house, and would have continued to 
keep you here with pleasure, if your mother had not 
showed so much anger about it ; now, as it is, it pains 
me to tell you, that I can no longer disobey her order." 

I was politely turned out of doors ! 

What should I do ? Where should 1 go ? To whom 
should I appeal ? I was in a terrible perplexity : one 
prison on my right, another on my left, and on every 
side abandonment and desolation ! 

"My God," said I to myself, not being able any longer 
to restrain my tears, "what is to become of me, deprived 
as I am of every means of support, deprived in fact of 
my own will ? If a cruel destiny moved everything to 
conspire against me, was there not at least some com- 
passionate law which would protect me ? " 

There was a ring of the door-bell : .it was a call from 
a friend of the family, very old, and bent down with the 
weight of years. At hearing what had happened to me, 
the good old man exhorted me to return to the convent 
until the tempest which had gathered around my head 



180 EETUKN TO THE CONVENT. 

should be dissipated, after which there would be an 
opportunity to pacify my mother towards me. With 
this advice, my sister, her husband, and other friends of 
the family, all concurred, and, to say the truth, I was 
myself unable to perceive outside of that any other de- 
fence which would secure me from desperation. 

Not knowing then what better saint to turn to, as the 
saymg is, I returned after dinner to the convent. Then 
I called my aunt aside and told her that I desired to 
return to the convent for several months longer ; to 
which she replied that she must consult the nuns, ac- 
cording to custom, before she could give me a definite 
answer. 

A little later they were all assembled in the parlato- 
rio, and heard from the abbess my demand. They an- 
swered that they would willingly receive me again if I 
would declare at the moment of entering that my deter- 
mination to return was not provisional, but that it was 
with the intention to take the veil. If this was not my 
intent, they declared that the convent doors would be 
closed against me. 

What a horrible alternative ! 

My sister seeing my perplexity and my hesitation to 
reply, exhorted me in an undertone to say yes, for the 
moment ; that once back again that they could not lightl}^ 
thrust me out. 

I was persuaded, and answered, submissively, that I 
returned with the design of becoming a nun. 






DETEEMTNE TO TAXE THE VOWS. 181 

"Say so, then, in a loud voice," said the abbess. 
" Have you finally determined to take the vows ? " 

My heart beat furiously, and my head whirled, and I 
thought I should faint. I asked for a seat, wiped off 
the cold perspiration which was standing in drops on my 
face, and, in an agonized tone of voice, responded : — 

"YES!" 

The die was cast. . . . Fatal yes ! 

Hardly had I pronounced the word "yes," when one 
burst of acclamation and of merry cries saluted my ears. 
The nuns all broke out with one accord in protests tend- 
ing to confirm the opiuion that my conversion was the 
manifest effect of the miraculous bell of San Benedetto, 
which I had heard the morning that I left the nun- 
nery ; therefore they despatched a crowd of converse to 
the campanile to ring a merry peal of bells for a festa. 

Hearing the ringing of the bells at that unusual hour, 
the neighbors sent in to inquire what had happened in 
the nunnery ; and the reply they received was, that 
the niece of the abbess had been, by inspiration from 
heaven, induced to take the veil ! 

Losing my spirits, and confused by the inauspicious 
combinations which overpowered me, I trembled like an 
aspen leaf. 

Pledging myself meanwhile to return the following 
day to make my formal entrance, I returned to the house 



182 CONGRATULATIONS. 

of my sister, immersed in the most sombre reflections. 
She was also much grieved at the direction my affairs 
had taken. 

The sad sound of the ringing of the convent bells^ 
disturbed my dreams all the night. I repented bitterl}- 
of having uttered the fatal "yes," and accused myself of 
imbecility. 

But woe to one who is dragged along by an inexora- 
ble fatality ! At ten o'clock in the morning I arrived 
at the convent, at the door of which several fiimiliar 
faces waited for me. I was received with another ring- 
ing of fejtal bells and the usual firing of mortaletti ; the 
noise of which attracted a great crowd of idle people. 
All that day nothing else was talked about but the 
miraculous bell and my new resolution to assume the 
religious habit. The cauonico jumped for joy and the 
nuns exulted in it, and there was a continual coming 
and going of confessors and priests. 

The Cardinal Caracciolo and the vicar came also to 
congratulate me upon my resolution, and in the evening 
a magnificent entertainment of ices and pasficceria was 
provided by my aunt for the community. In short, to 
bind me fast where I was entrapped, so that I could not 
possibly escape, the priests and nuns trumpeted forth 
the miracle of San Benedetto, and the fact of my con- 
version, with every possible means of publicity. 

To alleviate the dreary hours of solitude which I 



ZIMMERMAN ON SOLITUDE. 183 

anticipated, I had provided myself with several volumes, 
which I had managed to secrete in the bottom of my 
trunks. There were, among others, the Bible, the man- 
ual of Epictetus and the Confessions of Saint Augustine. 
I had also tried to obtain the Consolations of Boethius, 
but could not find it. I received, besides, from the hand 
of a favorite female friend, another volume, whose title 
seemed particularly appropriate to my situation : it was 
Zimmerman on Solitude. From this work I flattered 
myself I should derive some little comfort, and was very 
anxious to commence the reading of it. 

With what anxiety — after the entertainment above 
mentioned and the nuns had retired, and I in my turn 
had taken leave of my aunt — did I hasten to my own 
room and take out of my trunk this much coveted vol- 
ume of Zimmerman ! With what avidity I devoured 
by the light of the midnight lamp the first pages ! The 
fecundity of imagination, the animated and graceful 
style, the melancholy sweetness, the movement of senti- 
ment and of passion, with which the author studies to 
infuse into his reader the love of solitude, delighted me 
beyond measure from the commencement, and trans- 
ported me to the unknown regions of poesy ; and I 
thanked Providence for having given me for a compan- 
ion, a master, capable of poetizing the bitterness of 
solitude, of rendering my chains less galling, and of 
tempering my rebellious heart to the uniformity of the 
inertia ; to the perpetual monotony of this quietismo. 



184 MIDNIGHT EErLECTIONS. 

But suddenly a sad thought assailed me. 

"This philosopher, who, over the fascinations of soli- 
tude, scatters the charms of his eloquence broadcast, 
was he, in reality, my companion in prison? Had he 
been, like me, by an unavoidable fatality, constrained 
to the suicide of his own proper inclinations ? He, who 
with so much ardor extols the advantages of seclusion, 
does he know what it is to die of solitude, when de- 
prived of the affections of family ties, of memories, and 
of aspirations ; solitude, stripped of every germ of 
love, buried under a thousand restraints, one more ser- 
vile than the other, and sentenced to a perennial and 
ignoble sterility ? " 

I was now more than ever depressed. A hand of 
iron seemed to have seized me by the throat, and I was 
strangling. A neighboring clock had already struck 
midnight. I closed the book, extinguished my lamp, 
and opened the window, in search of a breath of fresh 
air. 

The sky was overcast and dark clouds were passing, 
driven rapidly by the wind. At the extreme horizon, 
some stars could be occasionally seen when not entirely 
obscured by clouds, and the moon itsilf threw a pale 
and uncertain light on the walls of the convent. Some 
drops of rain, which, from time to time, struck on the 
windows, interrupted for the moment the profound 
silence, and I then returned to my own solitude. 

It occurred to me then to write a letter to my mother. 



1 



INTERVIEW WITH THE ABBESS. 185 

I relighted my lamp, made a rough sketch on paper, 
but, judging the style to be too much agitated, I tore it 
up. 

" Would it not be better," I asked myself, " to confide 
my sufierings to my aunt ? " But she was asleep at this 
hour. I will wake her then. To go to her room, it 
was necessary to cross a dark corridor. I knocked at 
her door, — no response. The converse, finally recog- 
nizing my voice, opened the door, dismayed by a visit 
at this hour. The abbess was amazed at my distress. 
After she had sent the conversa out of the room : — 

"My dear aunt," I said, restraining with difficulty the 
emotion which convulsed me, "I am grieved that I 
annoy you so much ; but time flies, and my afiairs must 
progress with it, for I will not allow myself to be sur- 
prised by events which it is my duty to foresee." 

I informed her then, minutely, of the concurrence of 
events which had induced me to return to the convent, 
not without the reserve of an imminent and definitive 
ransom ; and concluded my remarks by telling her that I 
had formed the most unutterable and insuperable repug- 
nance to the monastic life. 

The poor old woman burst into tears, and, covering 
her face with her hands, exclaimed : — 

"Alas! what shame waits upon me in my old age, 

and in my last abbessate? What will the nuns say? 

What will the cardinal say, — the vicar, — the world ? 

They will call you a crazy fool ; and me, too, for having 

16* 



186 INTERVIEW WITH THE ABBESS. 

counselled you to come back ! and the reputation of the 
convent ! — and the miraculous bell of San Benedetto 
which was rung for you, — and the newspapers which 
have already spoken of this event. What ample mate- 
rials for scandal ! What fabulous stories will not the 
unbelieving world weave out of it ! " 

At these reflections, the poor old creature gave her- 
self up to crying and sobbing bitterly. 

Her distress, her resemblance to my much adored 
father, towards whom I never had occasion for a single 
word of reproach, — these things agitated me. Seeing 
that she would not be pacified, nor give herself any 
rest, but kept continually repeating, " Alas ! what a 
terrible misfortune ! What a shame ! " I took one of 
her hands in mine, and, giving free vent to my grief, I 
said : — 

" My dear aunt, go to bed again and be at peace ; 
against my own destiny I will no longer revolt." 

She raised her head and gazed at me intently. With- 
out taking breath I proceeded : — 

" Yes, I will become a nun. It will cost me my 
life, which will only be the loss of another unfortunate 
creature ; but I will not certainly, by my opposition, 
embitter the last days of the sister of my father. " 

I could not say any more, for the violence of my sobs 
sufibcated me. We remained folded in each other's 
arms for some time, without either of us saying a word. 
Finally, taking up the thread of the discourse, and lay- 



NEWSPAPER EEPORTS. 187 

ing on my head the holy relic which she always wore 
about her, she said : — 

"Be tranquil, figlia mia; God and our patriarch will 
sustain you in this sacrifice. I shall pray morning and 
evening that he may vouchsafe to you the wish to em- 
brace the religious life, and my prayers will be heard." 

She then urged me not to repeat to any one the inci- 
dents of this nocturnal conference. 

My sacrifice was finally consummated. From that 
moment I was a victim ! 

The ingress of newspapers to the convents is inter- 
dicted. Nevertheless, the canonico, drawing me aside 
the following morning, placed two journals before me, 
yet damp from the press, in which an account of my 
entrance into the convent was given to the public. One 
of the journals said : — 

"We take pleasure in making public a fact which, to 
the devout of every class, will be a source of pleasure. 
One of the daughters of the deceased and much-lamented 
Marshal Caracciolo, Signorina Enrichetta, of the Prin- 
cesses Torino, a young girl of rare piety, has determined 
to repudiate the vanities of the world and take the veil 
in the convent of San Gregorio." 

The other journal, the organ under the priestly influ- 
ence, said : — 



188 MY mother's letter. 

"The bell of San Benedetto has sounded again, and 
this time it has made a convert to the Angelical order 
Benedettina, of another Caracciolo, of tender age, and 
a descendant in right line from San Francesco, of the 
same cognomen. This young girl, who has heretofore 
exhibited the greatest reluctance to embrace the monastic 
state, has at length, from having been summoned in her 
sleep by the above-mentioned miraculous bell, formally 
expressed her intention to take the final vows. Impious 
and unbelieving, /az^e^e Unguis animisquel " 

jMeantime my mother did not write to me. I ad- 
dressed her a letter, and my aunt wrote another, to 
announce my determination to become a nun. She re- 
plied that she did not wish me to take that step, and 
for several months she opposed the most obstinate resist- 
ance. It was her design, she said, to marry me to a 
man of her own choice, nor would she consent, at auy 
rate, to my remaining in the cloister longer than until 
this opportunity should present itself. 

"She cannot, nevertheless," added my aunt, "oppose 
the decrees of God." 

These decrees, however, could not be made immedi- 
ately effectual. It was now the month of August, 1840, 
and I had not yet arrived at the age of discipline jjrop- 
erly to assume the habit of a nun ; my twentieth year 
would only be completed in 1841. It was necessary to 
wait, therefore, until the mouth of October of this last- 



VISIT TO MY MOTHER. 189 

mentioned year, or an interval of twenty months from 
the time of my first entrance into the convent. 

This time was dedicated by the community to prepa- 
rations, at my own expense, of confetti, for the da}^ of 
the festa. Meanwhile my aunt, who for ten years con- 
secutively had exercised the functions of abbess, had 
been succeeded by another Caracciolo, a woman who 
was austere and rigorous. This rigor, directly opposed 
to the excessive afiability of my aunt, created general 
dissatisfiiction throughout the whole community. 

Forty days previous to my taking the religious habit, 
it was decided, in order to pacify my mother, that I 
should spend this space of time with her. However, 
before going, I was obliged to disburse the expenses for 
the functions, amounting to seven hundred ducats (a 
ducat is equal to eighty cents) ; and it is proper to note 
that my good friend. General Salluzzi, kept his promise 
by giving me, at this time, one thousand ducats. 

In the mean time my mother, returning from Cala- 
bria, took lodgings in the house of Josephine, with my 
two little sisters. She, as well as my other relations, 
in noting my resignation to a misfortune which seemed 
at length inevitable, thought that my re-entrance into 
the convent was of my own free will. On my side, 
being about to renounce the world forever, and wishing 
to avoid censorious remarks, I abstained, during that 
space of time, from going to the opera, from the public 
promenade, and from society. I attempted, one day, 



190 THE CRITICAL DAY. 

merely to sing at the piano-forte, a popular air, — one 
which, once upon a time, used to please Domenico ; 
but it had such an effect upon my nerves that, from that 
time forth, I divorced myself even from music, and 
played no more, except upon the organ in church. 

More than once I thought of opening my heart freely 
to the general, and calling him to my aid ; but my word 
was given, — my lips were sealed. He had already dis- 
bursed his money to pay the necessary expenses, the 
greater part of which was already used, and could I re- 
treat without making a sad figure of myself before my 
benefactor ? 

There was now no plausible mode of escape. I must 
absolutely close my eyes and abandon myself to the 
discretion of a blind fatality. 

The critical day finally arrived. A crowd of relatives 
and friends came flocking to see me in the saloon of my 
brother-in-law. The men talked cheerfully, the women 
chattered freely, and the girls took possession of the 
piano-forte. I alone had the bitterness of wormwood 
in my mouth ! 

At ten o'clock I was called to get ready. I wore a 
garland of flowers on my head, profusely gemmed, after 
the manner of a bride ; a sumptuous white crape dress 
was then put on, and a veil of the same color was 
thrown over my head, which was long enough to fall to 
my feet. Four ladies assisted in these preparations, 



THE CRITICAL DAY. 191 

and two others were to accompany me, — the Duchess 
Caragliano and the Princess Castagnetto. 

Conformably to custom, these ladies began by taking 
me around to the different convents in order to allow me 
to be seen by the other nuns. I followed them auto- 
matically, mute and absent-minded. I was startled, 
however, when, seated in the convent of San Patrizia 
beside my other Benedettina aunt, I saw two acolytes 
enter in haste and out of breath, saying : — 

" Pray, come quickly to San Gregorio Armeno ! The 
pontificate mass is finished and all are waiting for the 
nun ! " 

Had a dagger been thrust into my heart it would not 
have produced a more painful sensation than did this 
simple announcement. I experienced a severe chill and 
my face looked like that of a corpse. 

The Duchess Caragliano was the first to rise. Pressing 
my hand upon my heart, T raised myself with difficulty 
and kissed my old aunt, who said, crying : — 

" This is our last kiss. Adieu, figlia mia ! We shall 
see each other again in heaven ! " 

The princess approaching me was startled, and said : — 

" Stop a moment, duchess, do you not see that the 
young nun is fainting ? " 

In fact I was, at that moment, leaning on the back of 
a chair for support, and was just ready to fall. 

I sat down again and called for a glass of water to re- 



192 CEREMONY OF TAKING THE VEIL. 

fresh myself a little ; and, after recovering breath, rose 
again to my feet. 

''I do not believe that you are going to be made a nun 
of your own free will," said the princess to me as wo 
went along. 

" On the contrary," I replied, gulping down a traitor- 
ous sob, "I am very well contented." 

The carriage came up, meanwhile, and we soon arrived 
at the quartiere di San Lorenzo. 

As we approached the Citta dolente, I gazed out of 
the carriage window with a heart-rending curiosity at the 
window-shutters, the iron, and wooden railings and bars, 
and the other defences of the convent. At the sight 
of this sepulchre, which stood ready to swallow me, I 
know not how I was kept from throwing myself, by an 
instinctive impulse, from the carriage into the middle of 
the street. But self-love sustained me. 

As we approached San Gregorio, louder and louder 
sounded the bell. Every stroke was a funeral knell to 
my spirits. 

At the corner of the street the confused murraurings 
of the people who were assembling on all sides, the 
firing of the mortaletti, the acclamations of the old 
women on the balconies, and the music of the Swiss 
band completed my petrifaction. I experienced all 
the sensations of extreme torture. 

At the large door of the churcb I was received by a 
procession of priests with the elevated cross. Two 



CEREMONY OF TAKING THE VEIL. 193 

other ladies placed themselves at my side ; they were 
the Princess Montemiletto and the Marchioness Messa- 
nella. The priest who carried the cross walked imme- 
diately in front of us ; the others formed in two wings. 

The church was elegantly dressed, profusely illumi- 
nated, and divided in the centre by a red and white 
paling, on the right side of which were the ladies who 
had been invited and received by my mother ; and on 
the left, the gentlemen who had been invited by my 
cousin, the Prince of Forino, had been placed. 

Of all that numerous assembly, of the many-colored 
decorations, of the ocean of light, I saw only one un- 
formed mass. When we arrived in the centre of the 
temple they made me kneel and presented me with a 
little silver cross and a lighted candle. 1 was obliged 
to place the first on my breast, holding it with my left 
hand, while I carried the candle in my right. 

In passing the ladies, my little sister Julia, extended 
her hand and, seizing my veil by one corner, cried out 
so loudly as to be heard by all present : — 

" I am not willing that you should shut yourself up in 
the convent, sister ! " 

That clear, silver voice, attracted every one's atten- 
tion. It was the voice of childish innocence crying out 
against priestly barbarity ! 

I turned to look at her. A lady had covered the 
child's mouth with her handkerchief. My tears now fell 
freely, though the fountain had been dry till that mo- 

17 



194 CEREMONY OF TAKING THE VEIL. 

ment. I arrived at the high altar. The vicar, who of- 
ficiated, the cardinal being infirm, was seated by the 
side of the epistola. Here I, and ray two companions, 
remained for a few moments kneeling; then they led mc 
to the vicar, and I knelt at his feet. 

A priest, with a surplice superabundantly embroidered, 
presented him with a small silver basin, and a little pair 
of scissors, with which he cut off a lock of my hair. 

I then arose, and, flanked by the same train and pre- 
ceded by the band, which was playing, went out of the 
church. That portion of the street which leads from the 
church to the convent was passed over by all, on foot, in 
the midst of a great crowd of the curious. 

• Hardly had I set foot on the threshold of the cloister, 
when I broke out into one of those impetuous bursts of 
tears which no human power can restrain ; and the nuns, 
closing the doors, quietly addressed me in chorus : — 

" Do not cry, for mercy's sake ; otherwise the people of 
the world will say that we take the veil, not from choice, 
but from compulsion. Silence, silence, for Heaven's 
sake ! " 

I descended to the comunichiuo. The vicar, the 
canonico, the priests, and the guests were all crowded 
around the chancel. Here I was led to a corner and 
stripped by the nuns of my gala dress, of the veil, of 
the garland, of gloves, and finally of my stockings. 

Clad, then, in a dress of black flannel, with di- 
shevelled hair, with eyes swollen by crying, I approached 



CUTTING OFF MY HAIR. 195 

the little gate of the comunichino. I heard among the 
crowd several groans, which were evidently provoked by 
sympathy. Who was it that felt compassion for me ? I 
did not know. 

The vicar blessed the scapulary and offered it to me 
with his own hands, and I put it on. Then I prostrated 
myself before the abbess. They had stripped me of my 
secular clothes 5 they must now strip me of my hair. 
The nuns gathered it up into one single handful and the 
abbess took up a pair of large scissors to cut it off, 
while a profound silence reigned in the room. 

A loud voice was heard among the guests, to ex- 
claim : — 

" It is barbarous ; do not cut off that girl's hair ! " 

Every one turned around, and it was whispered that 
the words had been uttered by a crazy man. He, how- 
ever, proved to be a member of the English parliament. 

The priests commanded silence, and the nuns, who in 
similar ceremonies had seen protestants before, cried 
out to the superior, whose hand was in suspense, grasp- 
ing the scissors : -- 

" Cut it off; he is only a heretic ! " 

The hair fell ; and I took the veil. 



CHAPTEE X. 

THE PROFESSION. 

The year of the novitiate — Marianna— Her death — Another change of abbess — 
Theresa — My relatives raise the necessary money to enable me to pay my way 
into the convent — Death of my sister Josephine — The holy stairs — Silly 
questions addressed to the candidate — Consequences of not conforming — The 
time arrives when the final vows must be taken, and I pronounce the vows of 
chastity, poverty, obedience, and of perpetual seclusion— The ceremony. 

The year of the novitiate was a year of calm for me, 
if I make no account of moral depression. The past 
was dead to me ; the future a blank ; memory a vain 
dream ; and hope a crime. 

Snatched away from my friends forever, separated 
from kind relatives, whom I was permitted to see but 
once a month, a stranger for many reasons to the very 
companions of my prison, I found myself, nevertheless, 
if not contented, at least tranquil. Concentrated ex- 
clusively in itself, my mind created, little by little, a 
second convent within the cloister itself, in which I was 
confined ; and within the enclosure of my own recondite 
edifice, where I led a solitary life, I should have been 
far more tranquil and happier, with a few more books 
and with my own meditations, if the visits of my rela- 
tives had not evciy time brought with them the recol- 
lections of lost liberty, and if the nuns had not, by 



MAEIANNA. 197 

their insipidity, rendered the seclusion tiresome. I 
passed many hours in the coro, devoted to prayer. My 
faith supported me. To infuse a faith into one who has 
it not, let him be unfortunate. 

On me was now imposed the duty to assemble the 
nuns in the coro, by sounding the bell, and I discharged 
it with alacrity. The remainder of the day I spent, 
either shut up in my own room, or in the room of the 
novitiates, or in conversation with the mistress, Mari- 
anna, who, taciturn and patient, listened to my reading. 

This good woman, who was about sixty years of age, 
had conceived a lively affection for me. Her name was 
Marianna, but I called her aunt, as young girls, out of 
respect, often call their female friends of mature age. 

I do not know whether she was disgusted with the 
confessors, or whether she had never had any passion 
for them. It is certain that she freely blamed the scan- 
dals and deplored the obscenities of which they were 
the occasion. Her modes of thought were similar to 
mine, and the affection she manifested toward me, — an 
affection warmer than that of my own aunt, — bound me 
to her by the strongest ties of filial tenderness. 

It was the custom of the convent, on solemn occa- 
sions, or on the birthdays or saints' days of the mis- 
tress, or novices, for the former to make some present 
to the latter of some acceptable object. As my friend 
was very rich, and knew that I was in straitened cir- 
cumstances, not being in the receipt of any income after 

17* 



198 MARIANNA. 

having furnished my endowment to the profession, she 
always made me these presents in money, using a man- 
ner and delicacy in doing it which were incomparable. 

She would not suffer a word to be said against me, by 
any one, directly or indirectly. 

The abbess having one clay convened the nuns to ad- 
monish them about the grave disorders which afflicted 
the community, she concluded her remarks, apostrophiz- 
ing the youngest of them in the following manner : — 

"It is you," she said, "who have ruined the reputa- 
tion of the community ! To us, who are more advanced 
in years, these parties, these schisms, hates, jealousies, 
and envyings, were unknown. You, who are not other- 
wise rich than with egotism and superabundant inso- 
lence, you have introduced into the convent the pest 
of civil war." * 

"Except my novice from this number," exclaimed 
Marianna. "She found the cloister already infected. 
Yes, I would to God all were like her, docile, polite, 
and observant of the rules." 

Alas ! the partiality of the mistress only procured me 
enemies ; and she who most distinctly manifested her 
antipathy to me was Paolina. Influenced by a coterie 
of educande, she, I know not by what monastic neces- 
sity, must always have some one to detest; and the 
others, because I, as novice, had arrived at a grade 
superior to theirs. 

In the eighth month of my novitiate, my good mis- 



IVIAEIANNA. 199 

tress fell seriously ill, and my tranquillity was destined, 
in consequence, to be of short duration. 

I had always noticed an appearance of infirmity about 
her ; but we were all entirely ignorant of the character 
of the disease with which she w^as apparently aiSicted. 
A violent fever, with complicated manifestations and 
sinister symptoms, drove her to bed. From the first 
day, the disease, though declared mortal, remained in- 
definable to the physicians. It was of a morbid and 
inflammatory character, but still her bowels seemed to 
be exempt, as did also the other principal organs of the 
body. Soon after this, she lost the power of speech, 
on which account, not being able to call me with her 
voice, she made signs to draw me to her. Then, with a 
painful cry, she pointed to her bosom, apparently in 
search of some relief; but I was unable to understand 
her. More than once I attempted to divine her wishes. 
At one time I endeavored to loosen the lacing which 
held her chemise to the throat, but one of her converse, 
who stood constantly at the side of her pillow, watch- 
ing, removed my hand, saying : — 

"It is loose enough. You need not trouble your- 
self." 

A little later the invalid seemed determined to tear 
her chemise from her breast, and I thought I perceived 
a bandage under it. 

" What is that bandage ? " I demanded of the con- 



200 maeianna's death. 

"She is accustomed to wear it always," she answered, 
blushing. 

"But perhaps it now oppresses her respiration. Let 
me undo it." 

"No," she replied, pushing me back, rudely. "Go- 
about your own business." 

I began to be suspicious that she had some hidden 
end in view, in acting in this way ; the more so, as I 
begun to perceive an insupportable exhalation coming 
from the breast of the patient. 

Incapable of compromising mj^self, where the senti- 
ments of humanity were concerned, I turned quickly to 
go to the infirmary, and made it my business to inform 
the physician, who gave the necessary orders to remove 
the bandngc forthwith. 

These orders were executed, notwithstanding the 
opposition of the conversa and the surly looks she 
directed at me ; and it was then discovered that a horri- 
ble cancer had eaten up half her breast. Doctor Lu- 
carelli, who made this discovery, was exceedingly angry 
with the conversa, and told her, that by concealing the 
cause of her mistress' illness, she had committed a cul- 
pable homicide. 

Yery frivolous were the motives for which the invalid, 
as well as the conversa, had kept a secret of this dis- 
ease. The mistress feared that if her malady were dis- 
covered, the nuns, either on account of the loathsome- 
ness of the disease, or for fear of infection, would not 



ANOTHER CHANGE OF ABBESS. 201 

allow her liuen to be washed with that of the others. 
The conversa, on her part, was paid an extra salary to 
keep the matter a secret. The day following, her spirit 
took its flight to the better world. 

Extremely simple are the funeral ceremonies of the 
sisters. When we enter the convent we are preceded 
by military bands playing inspiriting music, and the 
progress of the procession is attended by the firing of 
mortaletti ; but we descend to the tomb attended only 
by the simplest formalities. This woman had been a 
mother to me, and to lay her body in the tomb, I asked, 
and obtained permission, to lend a helping hand. For- 
ever blessed be her memory ! 

For the succeeding two months, the abbess officiated 
also as mistress. She, too, was very fond of me, which 
had no other effect than to redouble the jealousy of the 
young nuns and of the educande. 

At the end of this time, another Caracciolo was made 
mistress, a sexigenarian, but frivolous, astute, deceitful, 
and fanatical for the priests besides. This woman, 
though she knew all about the scandals of the con- 
fessional and of the comunichino, was yet so exacting 
as to impose upon me a daily confession. The ca- 
nouico, on his part, showed himself well pleased at 
seeing me more tranquil in spirit. Notwithstanding I 
affirmed that my tranquillity was nothing but a forced 
resignation to something which I had no power to pre- 



202 THERESA. 

vent, he pretended to believe that I had found my true 
vocation. 

Meanwhile, time was passing, and with it the year of 
my novitiate, and the day of the profession was ap- 
proaching. It became indispensable for me to have 
eighteen hundred ducats for the endowment, and seven 
hundred more for the expenses of the ceremonies, out of 
which, in this, as well as in the first ceremony, eighty 
take the shape of a present to the confessor, and another 
analogous portion was reserved for a compliment to the 
nuns. Altogether it amounted to three thousand scudi 
(dollars) . How many millions of dower to the divine 
and humble Master of twelve fishermen ! 

This sum was altogether beyond the reach of my 
family. Again I hoped that this might open the door 
for my escape ; but, in order not to leave me even this 
loophole, the Capitolo condescended to receive me with 
a less endowment of money, which was a source of an- 
noyance to me, because I had already seen what morti- 
fication another had been subjected to, because she had 
not money sufficient to pay the enormous expenses at- 
tending upon this ceremony. 

About this time a nun by the name of Theresa, sister 
of the before-named Paolina, took it into her head to 
drive me out of the little room w^hich had been ceded to 
me by my aunt, under the pretence, that for the amount 
of dower I was to pay, the room was too good for me. 
She was very proud and powerful, rather than other- 



FINANCIAL MATTERS. 203 

wise, in the community, and conceived that her wishes 
in that respect could not possibly encounter obstacle of 
any sort. She heard of my refusal and began first to 
look upon me with an evil eye, then ceased to salute 
me, and finally refused altogether to speak to me. Her 
sister hated me worse still, and the other nuns of the 
young coterie vied with each other in imitating her 
example. 

One day I met the conversa of these sisters in the 
dormitorio, and she had the impudence to stop me. 

"Have you dared," said she, gesticulating not unlike 
a lazzaroni of the most degraded class, "have you dared 
to refuse to my mistress the possession of that room ? Do 
you not know that she and her sisters, having brought 
into this establishment not only one or two, but even 
four endowments, not reduced either, but entire, are 
mistresses of this convent to a greater degree than any 
of the other nuns ? And you, the daughter of a soldier, 
coming here without. means, without ready money, ad- 
mitted to the profession by an act of charity ; do you 
dare to refuse that room to my mistress ? " 

Self-respect controlled my tongue ; although I knew 
very well that the mistresses of that conversa were 
sisters of only a regimental captain, and that the Carac- 
ciolo-Forino had, since the foundation of San Gregorio, 
introduced hundreds of endowments into the convent. 

However, I could not refrain from acquainting ray 
mother of this afiair : in answer to which, she assured 



204 FINANCIAL. MATTERS. 

me that she would make it her business to arrange for 
my financial necessities in such a way as should best con- 
form to the prejudices of the nuns. I also notified the 
abbess, privately, of the behavior of these nuns towards 
me. 

"What can I do for you, figlia mia?" she answered. 
''From the malice of others you must protect yourself as 
well as you can, as God will inspire you. This only I 
can confide to you, that if it be necessary, living in the 
world, to have the prudence of three, here, believe me, 
you will need the prudence of thirty. In the world, the 
passions, easily excited, are also easily controlled ; but 
enclosed, compressed, and condensed within this pinched- 
up vase, they explode sometimes with such violence as 
to paralyze the intrepidity and the calculations of the 
best instructed diplomats. To guarantee yourself against 
these, figlia mia, you must arm yourself with a little 
hypocrisy! Can you set a dinner-table without salt? 
Neither without hypocrisy is there any safety in the 
convent." 

With the consent of the superiors, it was finally ar- 
ranged that one of my relatives should execute a bond 
in my favor for one thousand ducats, and cede it to the 
convent for the completion of the sum of one thousand 
and eight hundred ducats, the principal of which, it was 
understood, was never to be called for ; but he was to 
obligate himself to pay fifty ducats per annum, interest. 



DEATH OF JOSEPHINE. 205 

The money matters being accommodated in this manner 
and the remaining preparations made, the first day of 
October was named for the ceremonies of taking the 
vows. It was the anniversary, also, of my taking the 
novice's habit. 

I was now compelled to forego my private reading 
and give myself up to the customary preparations, which 
would occupy some weeks. The ten days which imme- 
diately preceded that of the profession, were devoted to 
spiritual exercises, and the canonico preached in the 
parlatorio. 

The priests call the " profession " a second baptism, 
which washes away all sins ; the woman who might die 
at the moment of taking her monastical vows would go 
immediately to paradise, in the same manner as the souls 
of infants who die immediately after their baptism. 

The shrewd reader will picture for himself the appli- 
cation on the part of the confessors of such a doctrine ! 

The priests also pretend, that whatever favor is asked 
of God at that moment will be granted. I therefore 
asked for two. The first, contentment with monastic 
life ; the second, the restoration to health of my poor 
sister Josephine. I neither obtained the one nor the 
other. My sister passed away to the better world a few 
days later, and I, in a little time, gave myself up a prey 
to desperation. 

Speaking of the teachings of the confessors in the in- 
terior of the convent, I must not pass over in silence a 

18 



206 THE HOLY STAIRS. 

system of expiation to which the nuns in this seclusion 
attribute infallible virtue. 

There is on the right-hand side of the comunichino 
a magnificent marble staircase, called the 8cdla Santa 
(Holy Stairs), which has been the subject of a papal 
bull. Every Friday in the month of March, each mem- 
ber of the community, from the abbess down to the last 
conversa, is obliged to ascend these stairs on her knees, 
reciting a prayer on each step. By the fulfilment of this 
pious act, they earn with each step a new indulgence, 
and on arriving at the top the pilgrim is completely 
washed clean from all her sins, whether of intention or of 
commission ; and it is well understood how the spiritual 
director interprets this bull of indulgence ; he is never 
slow to apply to the conscience of his penitent the por- 
tentous Toties Quoties. If, therefore, at the washing- 
place of the profession the sins committed during the 
periods of the educandato and the noviziato are all 
washed away, the 8cala Santa remains, and is all-pow- 
erful to remove whenever necessary, any subsequent 
stain or spot from the veil, which may occur from the 
day of the profession even to the limit of old age. 

One word more about the spiritual exercises. The 
admission to the vows demands a preliminary examina- 
tion of the candidate, which takes place in pr^ence of 
the vicar of the Neapolitan church. It was originally 
instituted to inquire whether the act was performed of 
her own free will ; but, as everything else in this world 



SILLY QUESTIONS. 207 

has degenerated, even so has this. The examination is 
now only a formality. Behold, by the way, a sample 
of the questions put to me : — 

" If there should come from the royal palace an invi- 
tation to you to attend a ball, and the superior should 
give you permission, would you not feel inclined to go ? " 

I readily answered, "No." 

" If, at this moment a carriage should present itself 
at the door, drawn by four splendid horses with elegant 
equipage, and you were invited to take a ride along the 
Chiaia, would you not wish to go?" 

I again replied as before, 

"If, on the death of a reigning queen, the sovereignty 
should be offered to you, would you not renounce the 
high honor of being called the ' Spouse of Christ ' for 
an ephemeral and dangerous crown ? " 

I do not know, however, what my reply would have 
been, if, instead of the foregoing, my interlocutor had 
asked me the following : — 

" Is your heart entirely dead to love ? " 

" If your lover should throw himself at your feet and 
swear to you that he would lead you to the altar, would 
you hesitate to go with him ? " 

The examination avoided with singular dexterity this 
archipelago of rocks and quicksands and navigated only 
on the unruffled sea of trifles. 

To meet the case of one who should evince, during this 
examination, an abhorrence for the monastic life which 



208 FINAL VOWS. 

she was just about to embrace, and to which she might 
have been driven by parental tyranny, or by the vapor- 
ings of her confessor, or her desperation in love, cleri- 
cal diplomacy has decreed that she, who makes such a 
confession, shall be at once stripped of the scapulary 
and sent out of the convent within twenty-four hours, 
with the following curse upon her : — 

" Go away to the people of the world who are damned ! 
You are unworthy to live with the spouses of Christ ! " 

This terrible insult, which no young girl would have 
the courage to brave, renders resistance vain, on the 
part of the novice, and she finds herself morally bound 
to that life from the moment that she first takes the veil. 

The final and decisive day came at last. On the 
morning of the 1st of October, the canonico was the 
first to present himself, and he kept me from seven till 
eleven o'clock in the morning in the confessional, the 
last-named hour being the one fixed upon for the com- 
mencement of the exercises. 

By degrees the church was filled with invited guests ; 
it was crowded, even to the portico. There were several 
eminent personages there, and among others, a Prince- 
Royal of Denmark, who was in company with General 
Salluzzi. He was travelling incognito, was scarcely 
twenty years of age, and was a fine-looking man. lie, 
as well as the general, was dressed in gala costume, and 
wore the bado'e of San Geuaro. 



THE CEKEMONY. 209 

The pontifical mass was sung by Cardinal Caracciolo, 
and, when it was concluded, the people all gathered as 
closely as possible to the comunichino, to which place I 
was going, accompanied by four nuns with lighted 
candles in their hands. 

Two of them presented me with a sheet of parch- 
ment, on which was inscribed, in the Latin language, 
the form of the oath illuminated with pictures of the 
saints in water-colors, and surrounded with gilt ara- 



It was necessary that it should be read in a loud voice ; 
but mine failed me entirely. I began it in a subdued 
tone, and some one called out : — 

« Louder." 

I made an effort to raise my voice and to pronounce 
distinctly the four vows of chastitt, poverty, obe- 
dience, and PERPETUAii SECLUSION. My voice broke 
down and I was compelled to stop. 

Precisely at that moment, a lighted candle which one 
of the four nuns was holding, slipped .from her hand, 
fell to the floor, and was extinguished in its fall. Singu- 
lar augury ! 

When the reading was concluded I affixed my signa- 
ture to the document, as did also the abbess and the 
cardinal. 

Meanwhile, within the railing of the comunichino a 
carpet had been spread. They made me prostrate my- 
self on my face upon it ; then they threw a black funeral 
18* 



210 THE CEREMONY. 

cloth over me, on which was embroidered, in the centre, 
a human skull. Four torches were burning at the four 
corners and the funeral bell was tolled, the strokes of 
which were responded to by some groans which seemed 
to come from the lower end of the church. 

Shortly after, the cardinal turning towards me, con- 
jured me, three times, with the following apostrophe : — 
" Surgey qum dormis et exurge a mortuis el Uluminahit te 
Christusl " that is to say, " O thou who sleepest in death 
awake ! God will enlighten thee ! " 

At the first invocation, the nuns threw off the black 
cloth; at the second, I knelt upon the carpet; at the 
third, I arose to my feet and approached the little gate 
of the comunichino. 

Another Latin phrase not less mystical than the pre- 
ceding, struck my ear : — " Ut vivant mortui, et mori- 
antur viventes" The dead language of Latium pro- 
nounces the social life a state of death ; while that of 
Dante and of regenerated Italy applies the same to the 
monastic life. Which approximates the most closely 
to the truth? 

Finally, the cardinal having blessed the Benedictine 
cowl which I put on over the tunic, I received the 
communion. Then the abbess came to kiss me, followed 
by the nuns in hierarchal order. This ceremony was 
then followed by a brief seiTuon, and the ceremonies 
were concluded. 

Then the guests went up to the parlatorio, where they 



THE CEREMONY. 211 

were served with refreshments. Before opeuing the 
door to receive the usual congratulations, we waited a 
moment for my excitement to subside. Meanwhile the 
Danish prince had demanded, through the general, an 
introduction to me. He was anxious to inquire if I was 
content to be made a nun, and on my replying affirma- 
tively, he looked very incredulously at me. He wished 
also to examine my frock ; it was of black flannel with a 
long train, — the last remembrance of the monastic life 
of Madame de Maintenon. 

It is the custom of the nuns to oflfer a bouquet of arti- 
ficial roses to the cardinal and another to each one of 
the bishops assisting at the pontifical mass. I presented 
one, also, to the prince, who very courteously accepted it. 

" Dead roses from one dead," said my benefactor to 
His Eoyal Highness. 

"Let us go, general," he replied, " I cannot bear any 
longer to look upon this young girl, so barbarously im- 
molated." 

The people went away and the iron gates, creaking on 
their hinges, swung to their places. Thenceforward I 
was separated from the world by an abyss, which, to 
every appearance, was impassable. I must no longer 
have either mother, sisters, or relatives, friends, or for- 
tune. I had, in fact, abdicated my own personality. 

I still felt, however, that my heart was alive to, and 
palpitated with, sentiments which moved me to live at 



212 THE CEREMONY. 

least ideally with my fellow-creatures. I had made a 
sacrifice of my personal liberty to the community ; but 
not yet of my mind, which was mine by inalienable 
right. Much higher than San Benedetto, the voice of 
Jesus Christ reigned over my conscience ; of that Christ 
who became a citizen of the universe, the destroyer of 
castes, of sects, and of one-sided associations j the reno- 
vator of the family of nations and of humanity, by the 
one sole law of love. 



CHAPTEE XI. 

THE CHAEITT OF THE KTHSTS. 

Charity considered— I demand the office of the infirmary, and am assigned to it — 
Want of charity of the nuns for an old abbess at her death-bed — Brutality 
of a conversa — Another instance of the same sort— Indiiference of the nuns 
to the death of one of their own number — Suicide, in the convent, of a young 
country girl, from cruel treatment — Cruelty to a pet dog — Cruelty to a con- 
versa — A nun attempts to poison one of her servants. 

" Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for 
you from the foundation of the world ; for I was an hungered, and 
ye gave me meat ; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink ; I was a 
stranger, and ye took me in ; naked, and ye clothed me ; I was sick, 
and ye visited me ; I was in prison, and ye ministered unto me. 
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying : Lord, when saw we 
thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? 
When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in ? or naked, and 
clothed thee? or when saw we thee sick or in prison, and came unto 
thee ? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say 
unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these 
my brethren, ye have done it unto me." (Matt. sxv. 34, 40.) 

San Benedetto must have been inspired by these 
words when he wrote in his Eules as follows : "As many 
as ask assistance from you, let them be as welcome as 
Christ himself; for he tells you, *I was without shelter, 
and ye welcomed me.' " 

Let every one, then, be open to charity, since charity 

213 



214 CHAEITY OF THE NUNS. 

is incarnated in Jesus Christ. On this basis, benevolent 
institutions are organized on a grand scale ; hospitals 
are erected where the foundlings, the orphans, the sick, 
the poor, the old, the blind, the mute, the invalid, and 
the shipwrecked find refuge, and where physicians and 
nurses are su^Dplied, without money and without price. 

True hospitality, hospitality positive, hospitality so- 
cial, first saw the light in the cradle itself of Christi- 
auit}^, and is exercised in favor of the weak and unhappy 
whom the world oppresses or destroys. 

In ancient times woman was universally regarded 
merely as an instrument of reproduction ; philosophers 
themselves pronounced her to be incomplete. It was 
left for Christianity to reveal her true mission, which 
consists in the exercise of charity and devotion. In 
England, Germany, or in any country where Catholi- 
cism is raised to the level of the century, the Sister of 
Gliarity assists the sick, comforts the suffering, and 
proffers her aid wherever it may be needed, even in the 
most disgusting diseases. The daughter of Vincent de 
Paul visited the sick, who were old and infirm, day and 
night, medicated the most disgusting sores, and succored 
the dying; and, without ceasing to be a virgin, warmed 
in her own bosom, and protected from harm, the aban- 
doned infant. 

Strangers are everywhere partakers of Christian char- 
ity, and even to the infidel it is not denied. There is 
the noble name of Maria del Soccorso, the founder of a 



ASSIGNED TO THE OFFICE OF THE INFIRMAEY. 215 

* 

pious order of women who dedicated themselyes to the 
relief of poor strangers. The Bethlehemite nuns made 
vows of service to the sick poor, even though infidels ; 
and in our own day the name of Florence Nightingale 
has become dear to many a heart throughout the civ- 
ilized world. 

"There is nothing, perhaps, more sublime and touch- 
ing," says an eminent philosopher, " than the sacrifice 
which the delicate sex makes of youth, of beauty, and 
often of high birth, to alleviate in the hospitals that 
mass of human misery of which the spectacle is as hu- 
miliating to pride as it is repulsive to the senses." 

From the practice of a charity such as this, rendered 
divine by Christ, taught b}^ San Benedetto, humanely 
practised by the Christian clergy generally throughout 
the world, how far are the monks and nuns of South 
Italy removed ! 

Speaking of them, an ancient proverb says : — 

" They unite together without knowing each other ; 
they live without loving each other, and they die with- 
out mourning for each other." 

There are few proverbs in the mouths of the jDcople 
more truthful than this. The religion of these hypo- 
crites is but an article of dress, — they put it on and 
take it ofi" at their pleasure, and when it becomes soiled 
they send it to the washerwoman ! 

I asked and obtained the assignment to duty in the 



216 WANT OF CHARITY. 

* 

office of the infirmary. I obtained it easily enough, 
because it was a position not at all in demand by the 
nuns. There were some who were not worthy to fill 
such a place ; and others who, on account of some in- 
firmity, had been unable even to see their own friends 
for two or three years. 

In the course of the illness of a nun, and after death, 
it is usual to write her memoir, and a great part of the 
day is spent in commenting upon it among themselves ; 
discussing the question, for what fault God has sent her 
this or that complaint, and then they consign her to 
hell, or to purgatory, according to their respective 
passions. 

The rigorous administration of the present abbess, 
during her three years' incumbency, had not satisfied 
the community. In her place, they elected the before- 
mentioned frivolous mistress of the novices, by an 
unanimous vote, excepting my own. 

An ex-abbess, who had suffered, during her adminis- 
tration of the government, much heart-grief, died in the 
mean time. Her disease was a distressing one, her 
agony long and terrible. Crowding around thq bed of 
the dying woman, the nuns said, in a loud voice : — 

" She suffers thus because of the very bad manner in 
which she administered the abbessate. God is punish- 
ing her ! " 



BRUTALITY OF A CONVEKSA. 217 

An aged conversa, who was suffering from an abscess, 
which extended from her heel to the knee, was about to 
die. Whilst I was dressing it, the bell rang for morn- 
ing prayers. I hurried as much as possible to finish, 
then went down to the coro ; but because of the length 
of time I had been engaged in medicating the sore, I 
found the services had begun, though only five nuns 
were present. I was reprimanded by the abbess for 
not neglecting my work of charity ; while for the others, 
who had infringed upon the discipline without excuse, 
she had no reproaches. 

It is the custom of the convent, that a corpse, after 
being laid out, should be placed on the floor. It is a relic 
of Basilian tradition. Four converse are appointed to 
perform this duty. One of them, a demon by nature, 
though styled a nun, one night, in the summer season, 
not being willing to have her own repose interrupted to 
lay out her dead sister, I admonished her, and she got 
up and seizing the corpse by one leg, and furiously 
dragging it to the middle of the room, said, angrily: — 

"By the Madonna! couldn't you have done as much 
as this yourself? " 

The noise made by the fall of the head of the corpse 
on the floor gave me a thrill I shall never forget. The 
commonest grave-digger would have used more tender- 
ness towards the body of one who had died of the 
plague. I told the abbess of this inhuman act. 
19 



218 INbHTERENCE OF THE NUNS. 

" This is a matter," she said, "which regards rather 
the conscience of the conversa than my government. 
Besides, they are all equally inhuman in such cases." 

This same conversa was leading a poor blind nun to 
the mass one Sunday morning. She was vexed that 
she had been assigned to this duty, and asked to be 
excused ; but her request not being granted, she pre- 
cipitated the old blind woman from the top of the stairs 
to the bottom. The poor creature died from the effects 
of this fall. Another time she struck a poor sick 
nun in the face because she wanted to be turned over 
frequently in her bed. 

I agaiu complained to the abbess, in order that this 
barbarous monster might be assigned to some other 
duty than that of assisting the infirm ; but I was not 
listened to. 

There are in Naples an incalculable number of ladies, 
old and young, who live in the different convents, con- 
servatories and retirii of the city. I should say, un- 
hesitatingly, that there were few families which had not 
one or more members of the weaker sex deposited, like 
objects in mortmain, in those receptacles of domestic 
superfluities. 

One signora, who had been many years in the con- 
vent, was subject to epilepsy. There was not a day in 
which she was not thrown down by it. One day, when 
she fell, the noise attracted the attention of a young 



INDDPFEREISrCE OF THE NUNS. 219 

couversa, who, finding her alone and covered with 
blood, raised her from the floor and placed her upon 
her bed. 

For this humane and dutiful act she was scolded by 
the superior. 

"Should I have left her to die on the floor?" she 
asked. 

"You should have called another signora ritirata. 
Let them take care of each other," was the reply. 

Not less devoid of all feeling of pity and sympathy 
are the obsequies of the nuns. A sincere grief, a heart- 
felt sorrow, the tribute of tears on the grave of a de- 
ceased companion, would be phenomena as rare in a 
convent as in a theatre. 

That apathy, which among the stoics was called vir- 
tue, among the nuns is the efiect of calculation and of 
selfishness. It is customary to bury the dead usually 
in the morning ; and no sooner is a corpse deposited in 
the vault, than the breakfast-bell is rung, and woe to 
the conversa who should neglect her maccaroni because 
of her attention to the deceased. 

These instances of the feeling and the charity of the 
nuns towards the sick and the dead of their own num- 
ber will be sufficient. Turn we now to another kind 
of charity. 

A peasant woman shut up her own daughter in the 



220 SUICIDE IN THE COXA^ENT. 

convent, a handsome girl of eighteen years, because she 
was opposed to her marrying the youth that she loved. 
The abbess, condescending and civil to all those who 
had votes at the triennial election, used the utmost 
rigor towards the poor peasant girl, entire!}'- unused 
to the monastic sj^stem of slavery, and still less to the 
unventilated atmosphere of the convent. 

One evening, while the nuns were at supper, she went 
down to the well to draw a pail of water. Not return- 
ing as usual, others were sent to look for her. She was 
nowhere to be found. Partly from home-sickness, and 
partly from heart-grief, she had thrown herself down in 
the well.* The nuns ran to the porteria, and called in 
some men, who fortunately recovered her, still alive. 

The abbess, instead of oflfering her some consolation, 
which her case eminently demanded, confined her in a 
small remote room, and condemned her to a mouth's 
detention. The next morning, on opening the door, 
the recluse was found dead, having hung herself with a 
cord. 

In order to preserve to the masculine heirs intact the 
paternal estate, a family in easy circumstances had put 
two of their eldest daughters in the convent, and in- 
tended the third for the same end. The child lived 
with her parents in Naples until she had completed her 

*ln South Italy a large proportioa of the suicides arc committed iu this way. 



CRUELTY TO A PET DOG. 221 

twelfth year, when she was taken to the convent, ac- 
companied by a little water-spaniel, which she had had 
when very young, and had educated with singular affec- 
tion. When the moment of separation came, this de- 
voted friend could not be persuaded that his mistress 
would part with him. Warmer in his affection for her 
than were her own parents, who had left her with dry- 
eyelids, he, when he could no longer see the object of 
his affections in the parlatorio, set up a most lamentable 
howling, as if to supplicate his mistress to hurry her 
return. Dogs not being permitted in the convent, the 
monk-porter kicked the poor little thing out of the 
door; but the animal, indifferent to the treatment it 
had received, quickly returned to the spot where he had 
last seen his mistress, and here, stretched out on the 
floor, stiffened by the cold, he did nothing but howl, as 
though he would rend himself in pieces. At the hour 
of closing the iron gates, he was put outside, and passed 
the whole night by the door, in lamentations, and in the 
morning some neighbor, moved by pity, brought him 
some food, and tried to caress him ; but the dog refused 
both the one and the other. He continued to cry with- 
out cessation, for two days and nights, outside the gate ; 
while upstairs his poor little mistress was not less in- 
consolable. Finally, the nuns determined to rid them- 
selves of this annoyance, and the poor little dog was 
found dead on the morning of the third day at the en- 
19* 



222 CEUELTY TO A CONVERSA. 

trance of the living sepulchre where his mistress was 
entombed ! 

During the time of the weak government of my ab- 
bess-aunt, a nun wanted to dismiss her conversa, and 
take another more agreeable to her. The conversa, not 
being convinced that this was the real cause, threw her- 
self at the feet of her mistress, repeatedly appealing to 
her pity ; but found her inexorable. She next had re- 
course to the confessor of the nun ; but to no purpose. 
On the day preceding the last of her service she dis- 
appeared. She was sought for everywhere, and was 
found at last, crouching behind a pile of kindling-wood. 
Her mistress ordered her to be drawn out from there 
by brute force, and taken to the porteria. The poor 
creature, who howled like a mad woman, in passing in 
front of a little chapel, cried, imprecatingly, "O God ! 
let her die who is in fault ! " By a curious coincidence, 
three months later, this same nun fell down, struck with 
death instantaneously, in the via del Tribunale. 

Two converse served the same mistress ; one was 
young, the other old. The former rather stupid and 
foolish, and not being willing to tolerate any longer the 
admonitions and reproofs of the latter, she conceived 
the villanous design of killing her, by mixing in her 
salad some oil of verdigris. The unfortunate creature, 
from vomiting, and the severest pains in the intestines, 



ATTEMPT TO POISON. 223 

was apparently dying, and no one could divine the 
cause. By good fortune, the physician discovered the 
deleterious agent of this suffering, by making a minute 
search in the kitchen, where he found the oil, already 
green, which had been poisoned by putting a piece of 
copper in it. The appropriate remedies were promptly 
administered, and the old woman's life was saved. 

I should never finish, were I to attempt to relate all 
the instances of inhumanity, which remain unknown to 
the laws, and which are committed with impunity in the 
convent. The people of Naples will not easily forget 
the subterranean discoveries, in the year 1848, in the 
monastery of the Jesuits (evacuated now because of 
their exile) , and of the ossuario di neonati discovered 
in one of those horrid crypts. But I do not care to cite 
cases, of which I am not able to guarantee the truth. 
I therefore omit any further examples, and pass to other 
subjects, not less important. 



CHAPTEE XII. 



THE POVERTY AND HUlMrLITY OF THE NUNS. 



Eeinark of Herder — " Priestcraft" — What the vows of poverty and humility de- 
mand—The raakiug of confetti — The confessors always receive the best; the 
relatives what remains — Heartlessness of two nun-sisters — Of anotlier who 
hears the news of the death of her own sister — Jealousy of rank — A Barna- 
bite monk reprehended for preaching home-truths to the daughters of princes, 
dukes, counts, etc. —Instances of the ignorance of some of the nuns and 



A PEOFOUND critic, the father of German philosophy, 
has said, that the examination of the genio monastico 
contains the materials for many volumes. 

"A sentiment of tenderness seizes me," says the pro- 
found Herder, " at the sight of those calm solitudes 
where souls, tired of the yoke and persecution of their 
fellow-creatures, find -within themselves the repose of 
heaven ; but it is precisely on this account that our con- 
tempt for an isolation begotten of selfishness and pride 
manifests itself more energetically, — an isolation which, 
shrinking from an active life, reposes the destinies of 
the human species, in contemplation, in apath}' and in 
penitence, — feeds on phantoms, and, far from extin- 
guishing the passions, foments the most vile of them 
all, a tyrannical and indomitable pride. Let those 
apologists be cursed who, either blindly or perversely, 

224 



PEIESTCRAPT. 225 

interpret the Scriptures to teacli celibacy, or that life 
should be only one of inertia and contemplation. Ac- 
cursed be the false impressions which an eloquent fanat- 
icism, can yet stamp upon the young mind, after having 
for so many ages disfigured human reason ! " 

Generous disdain ! How many of the facts, which I 
am about to record in the following pages, will be a 
truthful and humble commentary on the foregoing ! 

The country of Henry VHI. and of Shakespeare has 
an expressive word which is wanting in other languages. 
It is Priestcraft, which means frode pretesca; and the 
existence of the word goes to show that priests are 
everywhere infected with the same vice. 

Our language has another peculiarity : it applies the 
same epithet to the calling of a merchant and that of 
the nun ; it is a ^^professione." 

What does it signify in our day, to make the vow of 
poverty? One of two things, — either the object is 
lucre, and opportunity to traffic under the nun's habit ; 
or under the cover of that same habit to enjoy, in un- 
disturbed peace, their own property, as well as that of 
others. 

And the nuns who take this vow, how do they observe 
it? 

They dress, exteriorally, in a tunic of rough flannel ; 
but under this they are careful to wear the finest linen, 
and, for handkerchiefs, the very finest cambric alone 



226 WHAT THE VOWS FORBID. 

contents them. On festa days they carry silver-chased 
rosaries, and sometimes even golden, suspended at their 
sides. It is true, certainly, that the habit does not 
make the monk I 

The vow of humility forbids them to have iron bed- 
steads, but that of poverty concedes three mattresses of 
downy wool, and feather pillows covered with antique 
lace. The bed-curtains, sometimes magnificent, are 
suspended from a ring of iron fixed in the ceiling. 

They are not permitted to keep objects of luxury on 
the commode; but in a pantry in the wall, out of sight, 
they can keep any quantity of precious plate, and the 
most valuable china ware. 

They are prohibited from keeping much money in 
their own rooms ; but there is, in every convent, a place 
called the "depository," where that of each nun may be 
kept separately. 

As to food, the}^ do not abstain even for the day of 
San Giovanni il Digiunatore. They eat of four dishes 
at dinner, one of which is always pasticceria, and of 
one dish in the evening, and their bread is made from 
the finest and whitest flour. They have the devout cus- 
tom of not eating fresh fruit on Fridays ; but this does 
not prevent them from eating as much preserved fruit 
as they please. 

They have the right to make presents, or compli- 
ments, as they are called, to the amount of four ducats 
a month. The superior may, in special cases, permit 



THE MAKING OF CONFETTI. 227 

them to donate to the amount of eight, and the vicar as 
high as twelve ducats a month. If they should desire 
to donate as large a sum as a hundred ducats, permis- 
sion must be obtained from the Holy See itself. 

Each nun has her particular saint-protector, or patron- 
saint, on whose day it is usual for her to make a great 
festa. To prepare for this celebration requires many 
weeks' preparation. They vie with each other in getting 
up the most splendid ceremonies, and even contract 
debts to do it when they have not the ready money by 
them, and squander their own means in oblations to the 
priests, in presents to the monks, and in compliments to 
the acolytes who officiate in the churches and serve the 
masses. 

They do the same on the occasion of the anniversary 
of their own birthdays, to say nothing of the profusion 
with which they distribute compliments at Easter and 
Christmas. 

But the principal occupation, the summum rerum of 
the convent, is the manufacture of dolci* 

The confection of dole! in the convent is of as much 
importance as that of cakes in the harem. Each con- 
vent has its own particular speciality, and its own 
particular renown. This one is famous for sfogliatelle; 
that for harcMglie ; another for pasta reale ; another for 
biscottini, for monacelle, for mostaccioJi, etc., etc. For 

*The term dolci includes a great variety of sweet things, which no single 
English word embraces. Outside of a nunnery the extent of this variety is not 
known. 



228 THE MAKING OF CONFETTI. 

a sfogliaieUa impastata of the Carmelitane della Croce 
di Lucca, the Neapolitan of good taste would forego 
even the delicious pineapple. 

Each nun is mistress of the furnace or bakery for 
dolci for one entire day, which commences at midnight ; 
but as for some a single day is not sufficient for this 
business, the nun returns the second time, and some- 
times even the third, on which account their converse 
suffer terribly from want of sleep, and frequently fall 
ill. More than one gray-haired old woman has told me 
that she had not even as yet seen the ceremonies of 
Holy week ; never having been a moment free during 
that week to enter the coro and look at the church. 

A monk who, during Lent, had preached in the con- 
vent with much sacred erudition and eloquence, observed 
that his audience was diminishing every day, until 
finally there were but a handful left. The nuns were 
busily occupied in the preparation of their pasticccrie. 
Observing but six nuns for his audience, one day, when 
he had a right to expect over seventy, he stopped short 
in his sermon and descended from the pulpit, mutter- 
ing:— 

" What is the use of preaching to the chairs ? " 

In the distribution of their dolci, the relatives of the 
nun always receive the inferior quality. Did you ask 
why? Because of the priests, who, with the confessors, 
are more careful to enforce obedience to those evangel- 
ical precepts which teach, "He that loveth father, or 



HEAETLESSNESS OF THE NUISTS. 229 

mother, more than me, is not worthy of me. If any 
man come to me, and hate not his father and mother, and 
wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his 
own life also, he cannot be my disciple," than to any 
other. They are faithful to these precepts, literally 
construed, denaturalizing the affections of those women, 
persuading them that they themselves stand now in the 
relation of father and mother and brother and sister to 
them, and that even the life itself of the penitent is 
theirs exclusively. Isolated in this manner, the nuns 
become more accessible to the empire of their spiritual 
fathers, who, meanwhile, quietly pocket the most choice 
and desirable portions of the pasticceria. 

Under the head of the breaking up of family relations 
which convent life occasions, I remember some cases, 
which I will relate in this place before I forget them. 

Two nuns, sisters, were one day in the coro, engaged 
in mental prayer, measuring the hour, as in the time of 
the Decameron, by the clessidra. They had only one 
brother, who was in a diplomatic employment. The 
bell was rung for them at the door, and their conversa 
ran to inquire the occasion. A sad message was brought 
to them, — their brother had been compromised with the 
government by some affair in his own office, and had 
committed suicide by blowing out his brains with a 
pistol. 

20 



230 HEARTLESSNESS OF THE NIJNS. 

"Who is it? What is it?" they demanded of the 
conversa, who returned, looking pale as death. 

" The servant of the Prince " 

"What does he want?" 

"Your brother" — and here the conversa stopped. 

" But good God, will you not finish? Is he ill? " 

" Alas ! " exclaimed the conversa, " he is dead ! " 

" Madonna del Carmine ! Dead ! How did he die ? " 

"He killed himself!" and she then narrated the 
facts. 

They looked each other a moment in the face, raised 
their eyes to heaven, and, joining hands, exclaimed, 
with the utmost stoicism : — 

"Anna!" 

" Camilla ! " 

" May God keep him in glory. Time flies, — let us 
conclude our prayers ! " 

They said nothing farther to any one of the suicide of 
their brother, unless it was at the common table, " be- 
tween the boil and the roast," as the common saying is. 

Another nun received a letter announcing the death 
of her sister, and at the same moment the dinner-bell 
rang. 

"Don't say anything of this misfortune now," she 
whispered in the ear of her conversa ; " it does not suit 
me to go without my dinner; for, by my soul, I am 
dying of hunger. " 






JEALOUSY or EANK. 231 

Eeturning to our subject, "the vow of humility," I 
will say, that rare as white flies are those nuns who do 
not make the most insolent ostentation of their pedi- 
grees. They will not receive an educanda into the con- 
vent if she does not belong to some of the families of 
the ancient sedili of Naples. San Gregorio Armeno 
has been, from remote time, consecrated to those of Porta 
Capuana and Nido. It was on that account that two 
young girls, daughters of a plebeian father and of a noble 
mother, were denied entrance into the convent until 
they had formally renounced the name of their father 
and assumed that of their mother. In their wranglings 
among themselves they are always disputing which is 
of the most noble blood. 

" You have only had a beggar count in your family, 
and even he was the youngest son ! " 

"That good soul, my grandfather, was so noble that 
he united on his shield all the feudatory titles, Prince 

of , Duke of , Marquis of , Count of 

, and, over and above all, was a member of the 

Eoyal Council of Spain." 

" This is all true ; we know it ; but then he descended 
from a bastard stock ; even the young ones of the streets 
know it." 

" The crest of your family, what stains there are upon 
iti" 



232 HOHE TEUTHS REPREHENDED. 

There were some who, when a procession was alDOut 
to pass, would demand the best places on the terrace 
from which to see it, by virtue of their blood. At their 
arrival the others must cede their places at once, nor did 
they even hesitate to make another rise, while even 
listening to the mass, if it happened by any chance that 
she occupied a seat which one of these considered de- 
sirable. 

A preacher who was very severe and cynical under- 
took to reprehend the nuns for the kind of life they 
led. They sent to him to say that he had no right to 
talk to the daughters of princes, dukes, counts, and 
Neapolitan barons, in that manner. The Barnabite, 
justly indignant at such an impertinent message, was 
one day subsequently delivering a- panegyric on San 
Guiseppe, in presence of a numerous auditory, when he 
took occasion to criticise, mercilessly, the message which 
these humble servants of God had sent him. 

There are some convents where the superior makes 
the nuns kiss her knee, and others where they are re- 
quired to kiss her slipper, in imitation of the ceremony 
at St. Peter's. 

As to the ignorance of many of the abbesses, how 
shall I describe it? A man of the world can hardly 
form an idea of the ingenuousness with which they take 
occasion to show it. 



INSTANCES OF IGNOEANCE. 233 

One of these, born in Naples, and who was never be- 
yond the environs of the city, affirmed to a crowd of 
nuns, that, although she did not enter the convent until 
she was thirty- two years of age, she had never visited 
the museum, nor had she ever set her foot in San Carlo 
opera house, nor had she ever been in the Villa Reale ! 
She had never even seen the gorgeous and centrally lo- 
cated temple of San Francesco di Paola. It appeared 
to her that all that was said and done nowadays, about 
the excavations at Pompeii, and of the terrible catastro- 
phe by which that city was destroyed, was sheer non- 
sense ! She conceived it to have been a city inhabited 
by heretics, who had sacrilegiously shattered the miracu- 
lous statue of San Genaro in the middle of their 
Forum ; at which, the impending volcano indignant at 
the impious perpetration of the act, forthwith belched 
forth that deluge of burning ashes which buried the heret- 
ical city forever. 

By another abbess I had been denounced for reading 
worldly books, or books on other than ecclesiastical 
subjects. Watching me when I was not on the lookout 
myself, I was caught in the very act with the book in 
my hand. 

" What is this you are reading, figlia mia ? Let me 
see," said she. 

There being neither time nor opportunity to conceal 
the book, I handed it to her, not without a lively uneasi- 



234 INSTANCES OF IGNORANCE. 

ness, however, respecting >tlie justification which I might 
be able to prove. The abbess put on her spectacles and 
read the title-page, and, returning the book to me closed, 
said : — 

" Memoire di Sant' Elena. Ah, the mother of St. 
Constantine ! How this poor creature is always calum- 
niated ! " 

The book, as the reader will probably infer, was Barry 
O'Meara's " Voice from St. Helena ! " I was now pretty 
well assured that the distinguished abbess was ignorant 
alike of the fame and name of the great Napoleon. 



CHAPTER Xin. 

INSANITY IN THE CONVENT. 

Tendency of convent life to insanity — Instances of nuns becoming insane — Hor- 
rible case of Anglola Maria — Her death— The case of the conversa Concetta 
— She precipitates herself over a stairway to the ground — Visit of an inspec- 
tor of police, and of the cardinal — Death of Concetta. 

The loss of liberty, the uniformity of their daily lives, 
the monotony of impressions, the frivolity of their con- 
versation, and, the greater part of the nuns being placed 
in the convent in childhood, the very slight education 
they receive, — these are reasons why at least one- 
third part of them become either monomaniacs or pos- 
itively insane. 

These same effects, produced by the same causes, have 
long since been noted in those penitentiaries conducted 
on the cell system, as it is called. And, if it has been 
found fatal in the prisons of the more temperate climates 
of Europe and America, how much more fatal is it not 
likely to be in the warmer regions, and especially in the 
volcanic, where man cannot without the greatest danger 
neglect to maintain his mental and corporeal faculties in 
permanent activity ! 

The hygienic statistics of the convent have not yet 
been undertaken. It would be a study fruitful of useful 



236 INSANITY OF NUNS. 

results. While waiting for such a work, I may be per- 
mitted to contribute my mite, perhaps, towards the 
materials for it, and at the same time furnish some illus- 
trations which are quite as worthy of the attention of the 
government as of the public curiosity. 

I knew one nun who could not, or would not, touch 
paper ; contact with that material would throw her into 
convulsions. Her conversa never left her side for a 
moment. When her mistress recited her prayers, the 
conversa was obliged to turn over the leaves of her 
prayer-book for her. On the receipt of a letter, the 
conversa had to open it and hold it out before the nun 
until the reading was finished. In order to be mistress 
of her own secrets she was obliged to retain in her ser- 
vice a conversa who had never learned the alphabet. 

Another, when listening to the mass on festa days, 
always fell into a species of catalepsy. If a current of 
air moved the skirt of her dress, she would mutter, but 
never move herself in the least. It once happened that 
another nun was standing near her and fainted and fell, 
her head dropping on the other's sholilders. She re- 
mained immovable as if nothing had happened, and prob- 
ably would have let the nun who had fainted fall to the 
earth, if I and some others had not come forward and 
supported her to a seat. 



1 



SUICIDE OF A NUN. 237 

I knew another, who, when she was sick, would oc- 
cupy herself with sticking pins into the sheet on her bed ; 
then she would gather herself up on the pillow and re- 
main fixed in that position, in order, as she said, not to 
spoil the marvellous symmetry of the bed. 

There was another who spent her time in making rag- 
babies and fondling them on her bosom, calling them her 
children, etc., etc. Nor can I ever forget two old luna- 
tics, one of whom was holding conversation all the time 
with Murat or Ferdinand I. ; the other, when she heard 
a drum in the street, would cry out, " The French ! 
Here come the French ! " 

The last named threw herself into the well one night, 
whence she was drawn up a corpse. 

But the convent where the greatest number of insane 
will be found is that of the Romite, in which the horrid 
and truly brahminical austerities practised lead more 
directly to insanity. This living tomb was founded by 
a half-crazy bigot, with the approval and under the 
patronage of the Eoman church. 

I have said elsewhere, if the reader remembers, that 
the con versa of my abbess-aunt had made a very dis- 
agreeable impression upon me the first time I ever saw 
her. A few days subsequently I was confirmed in the 
opinion that this woman had, I know not what, but 



238 ANGIOLA aiARIA. 

somethiug very odd about her, not only in the expres- 
sion of her face but also in her manner and habits. 

Angiola Maria, that was her name, was addicted to 
the fanciful adornment of her very disagreeable person, 
insufferably neglecting her attentions both to my aunt 
and to myself on this account. It will be sufficient to 
say that she let my bed go one whole week without 
making it up. I often asked the poor old abbess, who 
allowed herself to be so much abused by this servant, 
why she tolerated this half-crazy thing so patiently ; and 
she replied that if she should scold her harshly she would 
run the risk of being beaten with a stick. 

This conversa went to confession regularly every Sat- 
urday, and was in the confessional in company with her 
confessor not less than four or five hours each time. 
Some days she would spend an hour in arranging her 
hair, doubtless to qualify herself the better with the 
necessary humility for another meeting with the confes- 
sor in the parlatorio. On account of these frequent and 
long absences, my aunt was obliged to call on others for 
the services which her own conversa foiled to perform. 
After every new colloquy with her confessor she became 
more morose, and treated the poor old abbess to more 
and more insolence. 

I was very foud of my aunt and could not endure to 
be a witness of her sufferings on this account without 
regret. I was anxious to help her ; but how could I 



ANGIOLA MAEIA. 239 

r 

appeal to her superiors while she was mistress of the 
convent ? 

Li the mean while my auntLucretia died, and left two 
converse who came into our service. I took the j^oung- 
est, who was called Gaetanella. 

Angiola Maria, giddy-headed at all times, now became 
jealous, and began fairly to torture the abbess whenever 
she could find her alone. I do not know what was the 
occasion, but she was one day scolded by my aunt in 
the corridor. I stood at a little distance, but quite out 
of sight. 

The conversa went up to the abbess and struck her a 
violent blow ; the poor old woman staggered and would 
have fallen had it not been for an open door which 
served her for a support. At the sight of this outrage 
I uttered a cry, and arrived upon the scene just as the 
infuriated girl was preparing for a more serious assault. 

I flew to my aunt, received her in my arms, and, burn- 
ing with rage, I ordered the conversa to remove her own 
bed immediately from the room of the abbess, and not 
step her foot in it again, threatening to throw her out of 
the window if she did not instantly obey. 

Several of the nuns ran in, attracted by my cry, and 
on hearing what had occurred approved entirely of my 
course ; but the converse assembled together at the lower 
end of the corridor were murmuring among themselves, 
and said I had no right to do what I had done. 

I gave my aunt, who was still trembling from the agi- 



240 ANGIOLA MAEIA. 

tation she had suffered, something to drink, and then 
went to the pi'iora, to pray her to instruct Augiola Ma- 
ria that she must obey my orders. The priora granted 
my request, so that the conversa, driven from the ser- 
vice of my aunt, was thereafter obliged to serve the 
community at large. 

This happened while I was yet an educanda. Until I 
took the veil, this woman always scowled upon me when 
she met me and ground her teeth, muttering spiteful 
words, and, whenever she could do so, would take pains 
to avoid me. 

But in progress of time her conduct assumed a new 
phase. 

On the evening of the day on which I took the veil, I 
was told that Angiola had prepared a little present for 
me, and was anxious to know if it would be agreeable to 
me to receive it from her. 

I replied that I was quite content to forgive and forget, 
and would receive her present with pleasure. 

She then came to me, decked out in all her finery, and 
offered me the present (which it is the custom of the 
convent to make at the time of taking the veil), and 
attempted to excuse herself for her conduct at the time 
when she had so excessively provoked me. I repeated 
what I had said to her before, and from that day her 
behavior towards me was completely changed. Every 
time she met me she greeted me veiy cordially and in- 
quired after my precious health, and was always on the 



ANGIOLA MARIA. 241 

lookout for an opportunity to lend me her assistance, 
and, when I was indisposed, she installed herself in my 
room in order to be in my company. 

Notwithstanding all this, her remarks disgusted me, 
and her aggrieved looks frightened me. She was con- 
tinually talking about her confessor, or of her own fine 
form, — of the fine taste in which her dress was cut, 
and, from time to time, complaining of the treachery to 
her of the two converse of my aunt Lucretia, — a treach- 
ery (according to her) which consisted in snatching 
away from her her beloved ragazza (girl), meaning me. 
In short, I became every day more and more confirmed 
in the opinion that the brain of this poor woman was 
not in its normal condition. 

A little time subsequently, her mental disorder man- 
ifested itself in a most horrible manner. She would 
get up in the night and ramble around like a spectre, 
and refuse food, and fall into an unseemly habit of dress, 
and into a gloomy mood, which would last for eight or 
ten days. 

Her madness inspired her with a strange wish, — that 
of entering particularly into my service, to the end (as 
she said) that she might be able to manifest her afiec- 
tionate predilection for me, instead of the indiflerence 
she had heretofore shown me. She continually impor- 
tuned me to send Gaetanella away, and take her again. 
Gaetanella on her part, and with greater reason, con- 
tended that I ought not any longer to allow the crazy 
21 



242 ANGIOLA MARIA. 

creature to come into my room. And when I re- 
marked : — 

" Do you not see that the poor creature is crazy ? " 
she replied : — 

" Crazy ! Perhaps ; but I think it is all put on." 

*' What can she hope to gain by dissimulating? " 

At this question Gaetanella bit her lip, and preserved 
an imperturbable silence. It was natural enough, I 
suppose, that she should feel some resentment towards 
Angiola. To avoid any conflict between them, I at- 
tempted more than once to prohibit Angiola Maria from 
coming into my room ; but she, prostrating herself be- 
fore me, and striking her head with both her hands, and 
screaming and crying, kept continually repeating : — 

" Woe is me ! do not drive me away for pity's sake ! 
Eather throw me over the wall ! " 

Convinced that it was insanity which afflicted her, 
and which was developing itself, I no longer withheld 
my sympathy, and took no more notice of the incredu- 
lity of Gaetanella. 

It was about this time that her frenzy began to 
increase. 

At that time, also, the inefficient abbess, already men- 
tioned, was in power. She had formerly been mistress 
of the novitiates. I notified her of this poor creature's 
alienation of mind, in order that she might be restrained 
from doing any injury either to herself or to any member 
of the community. 



ANGIOLA aiARIA. , 243 

" Exercise your own influence over her, rather," she 
replied, " she listens more readily to you than to any one 
else." 

"I am not mistress of the insane, and cannot stand 
and watch her all the time." 

" Well, the Madonna will think for her," added the 
stupid superior. 

The case, however, was becoming, all the time, more 
serious. In spite of the discipline, Angiola Maria was 
permitted to let her hair grow, and to lay off her veil 
and throat-band. She parted her hair and dressed it in 
the secular manner, saying that she was going out of the 
convent to seek a husband. 

"You say I am crazy," she cried to the nuns who 
surrounded her, in one of the moments of her paroxysm. 
"No, I am not crazy because I want to be married. Is 
it not you, rather, who are crazy and foolish? You 
who, possessing youth, riches, and beauty, and who can, 
therefore, easily find husbands, — you remain here in 
this cavern, pining away, without them. Follow my 
©xample, you who have a grain of common sense left; 
throw off the nun's habit and allow your hair to grow." 

Another time, notwithstanding she was suffering from 
an excruciating headache, she threw herself into an 
awkward and disgusting attitude, and kicking, cutting 
capers, and crossing her fingers over her thumb, to im- 
itate the rhythm of the castauettes, she sung, with a shrill 



244 ANGIOLA MARIA. 

and dissonant voice, the following song, in the Neapo- 
litan dialect : — 

*' Gue Ma, ca cchiu non pozzo 
Mena sola sta vita; 
lo voglio fa la zita, 
Me voglio mmareta. 

" Me faje fa vlcchiarelle, 
Me faje jire a 1' acito ; 
Gue Ma, voglio o'raarito, 
Non pozzo sola sta. 

♦' Si gia s'e mmaretata, 
Teresa e Luvisella; 
Pecclie a me poverella 
Me faje pate accossi? 

" Lo fecatiello a fforza 

S' a da 'nfcla a lo spito ; 
Gue Ma, voglio o' marito, 
Non pozzo sola sta.* " 

It is prohibited to the nuns to sleep "with the doors of 

* A translation of the above doggerel from the Neapolitan dialect, even into the 
Italian language, would be next to impossible, and we therefore shall only attempt 
to give some idea of it : — 

Mother dear, I cannot bear 

To live single all my life; 
I want to have a lover, 

I roust become a wife. 

Every day I'm grooving older. 

My life is one of gloom ; 
Mother dear, I wish to many, 

1 cannot live alone. 

Teresa and Luvisella, 

Already are they wed ; 
Why, in this cruel manner, 

Must I remain a maid? 

My liver is forced e'en now 

To be run upon the spit; 
O mother, I must marry, 

I cannot live alone. 



ANGIOLA MARIA. 245 

their rooms closed, which shows a distrust, one would 
suppose, little honorable to the spouses of Christ. One 
night I felt a rough hand passing over my face. I 
thought I had been dreaming, and fell asleep again. 
The following night I was awakened from another cause. 
I felt a kiss on my lips ... I awoke terrified, and 
there I saw Angiola Maria, who said to me : — 

"Do not be afraid, it is I ! " 

"What do you want?" 

"Nothing. But I cannot sleep." 

Gaetanella, who slept in my room, was a sound 
sleeper, and it was not easy to wake her. I was fright- 
ened by the crazy woman, and ran to weaken her and 
shook ' her. She muttered betw^een her teeth some- 
thing like this : — 

"Will you not drive away this hirhaccionaf " and, 
turning over, she fell into the most profound sleep again. 

Meanwhile, these nocturnal apparitions became more 
and more frequent ; my room was placed in a state of 
siege, and, by degrees, the insane creature made me the 
victim of her frenetic vigils. Eaising the curtains of my 
bed one night, I sat up, half naked and dishevelled, to 
listen to her wild talk, from which I was not slow to 
learn that the occasion of her madness was the violent 
passion she had conceived for her confessor. 

I now implored the superior for some prompt relief. 
I was becoming weaker every day from loss of sleep, 
and, enervated by incessant apprehensions, I felt myself 

21* 



246 ANGIOLA IVIARIA. 

near to falling ill. The abl^ess, instead of doing any- 
thing to relieve me, answered me with, "God will aid 
theel" 

One morning, while we were singing the Psalms in 
the coro, a couversa came to call the aunt of the two 
educande, friends of Paolina. She went out and re- 
turned a few minutes afterwards, pallid and bewildered, 
and demanded to be excused from the matins, that she 
might go to her nieces, who had been beaten by Angiola 
Maria. Paolina followed her, to assist her two friends, 
who were in peril. 

A little while after, the abbess called me to her by 
signs, and desired me to interfere in the contest and en- 
deavor to soothe the fury of the insane conversa. I 
obeyed ; not, however, without having made her observe 
that I had already repeatedly besought her to apply 
an efficacious remedy to this trouble. 

Angiola Maria had shut herself up in her own room, 
under lock and key, and she would not even open her 
door to me. 

I was anxious to pacify the two educande for the 
wrongs they had suflered, and went to look for them. 
Paolina, who was on guard at the door where they had 
taken refuge, seeing me coming, said, angrily : — 

" Here is the person who told Angiola Maria to beat 
you ! " 

At this announcement the two educande bounded out 



ANGIOLA MARIA. 247 

of their room like a couple of unleashed hounds, and 
heaped an unmeasured amount of abuse upon me. 

This wicked imputation brought me to a sudden stop. 
Indisposed as I had been for several days, my nerves 
completely unstrung, I was unable to bear this unex- 
pected calumny and fell to the floor in convulsions. 

Angiola Maria had not recognized my voice when I 
asked her to open her door, but she knew my groans 
and came out at once with nothing on but her chemise. 

Seeing my condition, she drove away those who were 
crowding around me, then with herculean strength 
raising me in her arms, she carried me to my bed, where 
she took the most tender care of me. 

When I had recovered my senses and speech, I scolded 
her earnestly for her treatment of the educande. "She 
listened to me at first apparently much afiected, but 
soon falling into a fury again, she tore her chemise en- 
tirely to pieces, so that she was left quite naked, and 
then shut herself up in her own room. 

The imputation cast upon me by Paolina had morti- 
fied me exceedingly, although the spite of these girls 
towards me was no new thing. In order to recover my- 
lost tranquillity and further to remove myself from per- 
sons grown up and educated in the cloister from infancy, 
and in consequence void of every rudiment of civiliza- 
tion, I profited by the opportunity which was offered by 
the crazy woman's shutting herself up in her own room, 
to transfer my bed to the room of my aunt. I knew, 



248 ANGIOLA MARIA. 

too, that the couversa, miudful of past contentions, 
would never set foot in that room. 

An hour later the poor insane creature opened her 
door, — she was only half dressed, — and ran to my room, 
which was at some distance from hers, and, not finding 
either me or my bed, she set up a horrible screaming ; 
then, transported by her fury, and seizing a knife with a 
sharp point, ran furiously through the corridor howling 
fearfully, and crying : — 

"They have killed my ragazza, eh? They shall have 
their throats cut, every one of them, as if they were 
hens in the poultry-yard." 

I did not move from where I was. I heard a voice 
calling me, but I remained silent. jNIeanwhile the nuns 
who* were in the dormitory, where the scene was enact- 
ing, ran and shut themselves up in their own rooms 
quickly as possible ; the others ran for the abbess, who 
sent repeated messages for me from the other side of the 
dormitory. 

"Dear Enrichetta," she said, "you are the only one 
who can bring any remedy for the cure of this trouble 
which afflicts the community." 

"How so, reverenda?" 

"No nun will sleep to-night on the second floor where 
this frantic woman is. Will you not do me the favor to 
carry your bed back again to your own room, and have 
Augiola Maria's made up there, also? Then, my dear, 
keep her near you and do not let her come out again." 



ANGIOLA JIARIA. 249 

"This is too much, reverencla," I replied, highly in- 
dignant. "No, I will not do it. First of all, from loss 
of sleep, I have already a fierce headache ; then the dis- 
ease of this uufortmiate creature has now arrived at that 
state that she no longer recognizes my voice ; and, finally, 
I will not, by doing that, give to the malevolent a mo- 
tive to attribute to my suggestions whatever the poor 
insane creature may do in her fury." 

"Come, come, do not listen to the nonsense of these 
foolish girls. I myself and the entire community will 
be very grateful to you, if you will do it." 

In justification of my refusal, I again alluded to the 
condition of my own health. In fact, I was at that 
moment sufiiering from fever. But the abbess, deter- 
mined to have her own way, concluded by saying : — 

" You have taken the vow of obedience ; obey the or- 
ders of your superiors, and all your diseases will be 
healed." 

However despotic the injunction, I was obliged to 
conform to it, either from choice or from force, for when 
I took the veil I promised obedience. 

Then I went up the stairs to the second floor, and 
found Angiola Maria standing in the corridor with the 
knife in her hand, and declaiming in an unintelligible 
monologue. What an aspect she presented ! It was 
that of a wild beast, a fury ! Her eyes had nearly 
forced themselves out of their sockets, and were exe- 
cuting the rapid evolutions of the hands of a watch 



250 ANGIOLA JIARIA. 

"when the main-spring breaks ; her hair inextricably di- 
shevelled, — her mouth distorted, and her nostrils foam- 
ing with rage, and with her arm raised ready to strike 
the first person who should appear before her. I 
stopped at the door of the dormitory and held it so 
that I could shut it readily in case she should make an 
attack upon me. I was alone ; no one had followed me. 
I called to her, and she, turning and recognizing me, ran 
towards me with open arms, but without throwing away 
her knife. I shut the door and turned the key, and she 
began to howl louder than ever, conjuring me to open 
the door. 

"Throw away your knife," I said; "lam afraid of 
it." She obeyed. I heard it fall on the floor at a great 
distance, and then I opened the door. The poor 
creature then seized my hands with both of hers and 
covered them with kisses. 

Her condition excited my compassion. I found the 
knife and chided her for having used it as she did, and 
she promised that she would not do so again. I then took 
her to her own cell, and made her open her trunks and 
take out everything with which she could possibly work 
any mischief either upon herself or others ; and this she 
did cheerfully. 

This done, I told her that she must pass the night in 
my room ; at which announcement she abandoned her- 
self to the most iiitemperate exultations, clapping her 
hands and laughing awkwardly. She immediately 



ANGIOLA MARIA. 251 

brought her own bed into my room, which provoked 
Gaetanella exceedingly. She was suffering from the 
scurvy, which is frequently contagious in the atmosphere 
of the unventilated cloister. The blood which came 
from her gums she thought was the effect of haemoptysis, 
and attributed it to the anxiety which that crafty and 
dissimulating Angiola Maria had caused her. 

It was eight o'clock of an evening in the month of 
August, and the bell had rung as usual for " silence." I 
went to bed. Gaetanella and Angiola followed me, — 
the last promising, as usual, to remain quiet. 

Notwithstanding her promise, she raged, writhed, and 
rolled around in her bed, in such apparent distress as to 
excite one's pity. I inquired what was the matter. 

"I cannot remain in bed," she said; "my head burns, 
and the bells are ringing in my ears." 

She then got up, opened the window which looks out 
upon the terrace, and drew a deep and sonorous respira- 
tion from the fresh night air ; then she took to w^alking 
the room, muttering incoherent sentences like the fol- 
lowing : — " My husband ; " " My confessor ; " " What a 

fine thing!" "You will be obliged, dear Don , to 

do one thing or the other ; " and " That blackguard will 
deceive you, eh?" "Now you must go and administer 
the sacrament to one who is dj^iug — it is not time yet 
— one kiss first — give me a kiss before you go away ! " 
In saying which, she opened her arms to embrace the 



252 ANGIOLA jVLVRIA. 

object of her vision, then cried a little, then laughed 
heartily, and then began to howl. 

After spending a couple of hours in this delirium, she 
returned to bed and went to sleep. Gaetanella was 
asleep, also. I was suffering with a violent fever. I 
arose very quietly from the bed, closed the window, and 
fell into a drowsy condition, from which I was some time 
after aroused by an attack of palpitation of the heart, to 
which I was subject. Perfect silence reigned in the 
room ; nothing was to be heard but the rapid respira- 
tions of my couversa. I raised the curtains of my 
bed to see what the insane woman was about, — her bed 
was empty ! 

I sat down on my bed and looked carefully around the 
room ; she was nowhere to be seen. I called Gaeta- 
nella, and told her that Angiola Maria had made her 
escape, and she replied : — 

" What is that to me ? Let her go to perdition ! " 

I arose and partially dressed myself. The clothes of 
Angiola Maria were lying on a chair, and her shoes were 
under her bed. I put my head out of the door ; the 
dormitory was deserted. I w^cut out cautiously and 
approaching the poor creature's cell , called her hy name : 
no answer. I then entered the second dormitory. It 
was still lighted from one corner by a half-spent lamp, 
which only served to make the darkness a little more 
visible. Here I stopped, reflecting whether I should 
turn to the right or to the left. I resolved .upon going 



ANGIOLA MARIA. 253 

to the left, and, advancing slowly, I approached the 
aforesaid dormitory. 

This dormitory terminated by a well on o^e side and 
a large gallery on the other. The gallery was uninhab- 
ited, and because of its immense size it awakened horror 
even in the daytime. The worst sort of pictures, in 
fresco, of anchorite saints and of recluses, covered the 
walls with their long and lank faces, cadaverously tinted ; 
with long and thin beards ; and who, if we may credit 
the traditions and the stories of the nuns, have spoken, 
walked about, rung the bell, and sung the mass at mid- 
night ! 

My legs trembled under me, partly from the effects 
of that superstition which it was difficult to shake off, 
under the circumstances, and again from the fear of 
finding Angiola Maria a corpse in some place in which 
the darkness would have rendered the scene more fright- 
ful still. 

I was about to turn away from the gallery, when I 
thought I saw something white moving in the vicinity of 
the well. 

I was confounded. It was the crazy woman, who, in 
her bare feet, with nothing on her body but her chemise, 
stood looking down into the well, apparently measuring 
the distance to the bottom with her eye, and preparing 
to precipitate herself down. With both her hands upon 
the curb, and with her head bent over, she stood ready 
to make the fatal leap. 



254 AXGIOLA MARIA. 

I screamed for help. She heard me, turned to look at 
me, and without any more delay prepared to jump. 

I sprang upon her suddenly and seized her by the 
arms, which were as cold as ice. She turned her wild eyes 
upon me, but did not recognize me, and struggled to de- 
tach herself from my grasp, and in fact succeeded. I 
seized her again by the arm, which I held with both of 
my hands with all the strength I could command ; but I 
found that hers was greatly superior to mine, and soon 
perceived that she was intent on seizing my wrists with 
her teeth. I concluded that I must startle her in order 
to save her. Eeleasiug hold of her with one of my 
hands, therefore, I gave her a severe slap on the cheek 
with the other. 

This blow brought her to herself for a moment, and 
then she began again to howl. I now took her by the 
hand and led her without any more fear or fatigue to 
my own room. Here she seated herself on the floor 
and continued howling for a couple of hours longer, 
when, becoming somewhat more quiet, she recommenced 
her incoherent ravings. 

In the mean time, Gaetanella, who, disturbed by the 
noise made by the crazy woman, could sleep no longer, 
got up and went out, and I dressed myself although 
benumbed with the cold. 

At sunrise I wrote a note to General Salluzzi, requesting 
him to come and see me. That generous friend responded 
promptly to my call, and was much grieved to find m& 



ANGIOLA MAEIA. 255 

SO unhappily situated aud in fac^ ill. At my request, 
he then waited on the canonico Savarese, at that time 
vicar pro tempore, and made an energetic complaint 
of the manner in which I had been treated in the con- 
vent, and especially of the conduct of the abbess in 
making me the custode of the insane woman. 

By order of the vicar, Doctor Cosimo Meo came to 
see Angiola, and after examining her for some time, he 
exclaimed : — 

" She is not only insane ; she is raving mad. Call 
the blood-letter at once. She must be bled." 

Eight robust converse were scarcely sufficient to hold 
her still while the blood-letter was taking blood from 
her foot. Not a drop fell into the basin, which was 
held to receive it, but it spirted over the converse and 
the operator, and fell in copious quantities on the floor. 
The doctor then ordered ice to be applied to her head 
during the day, and said he would send an experienced 
nurse, who was accustomed to take care of the insane, 
to stay with her. The vicar, however, directed the 
abbess to place the patient in a lunatic asylum; the 
doctor having said that her complexion indicated that 
she would be very violent in her paroxysms, and would 
require the most vigorous restraints. Being tranquil- 
lized at last, and gratified, also, at the course things had 
taken, I wrote a letter of thanks to Gen. Salluzzi. My 
bed was removed to my aunt's room again, and I has- 



256 HER DEATH. 

teued to get into it, fof I was no longer able to keep on 
my feet. 

The nurse, to whose care Angiola Maria was to be 
committed, arrived and applied the ice-baths to her 
head. She was subsequently taken in a close carriage, 
accompanied by her nurse, to Calvizzauo, where a priest 
had an asylum for the insane. But all remedies proved 
vain in her case. She was subjected to the iron waist- 
coat, and in a short time Ave heard that the poor creat- 
ure had died, suifering all imaginable torments. 

Meanwhile this affair had increased my abhorrence 
of the monastic life. I was now fully acquainted with 
the egotism of the nuns, who, by a secret agreement, 
had endeavored to make me sacrifice my life, themselves 
expecting to secure two objects thereby ; first, their 
own tranquillity, to the detriment of my health, and 
perhaps at the risk of my life ; and, lastly, the expense 
of a woman as nurse for the insane woman. 

The niggardliness of the convent eclipsed that of Ar- 
pagone or of Sherlock. In order to escape from that 
suffocating hole, I should have considered any means 
proper ; but what grief would it not occasion my poor 
aunt ! 

Another occurrence, similar and not less tragical, 
took place after Angiola Maria Avas carried a^xay. There 
was employed, in the confection of syrups and the prep- 
aration of infusions for the use of the drug-shop, a 



CONCETTA. 257 

conversa called Concetta, a countrywoman of the afore- 
said Angiola, both being of Afragola. She was a hand- 
some woman, of thirty-six years, tall, robust, and with 
a marvellously rosy complexion, which made still more 
apparent a large mole on her left cheek. She had a 
large mouth, furnished with a set of splendid teeth, 
blue eyes, and the brightest chestnut-colored hair, 
which curled a little at the ends, and, issuing from be- 
neath her throat-band, fell in graceful curls on her neck. 
Her nose, being extremely aquiline, alone prejudiced 
this rare type of beauty. 

In the performance of her duties, Concetta was very 
exact, and would have been an example in everything, 
if she had not been a little conceited and coquettish in 
the parlatorio. 

I observed that she treated a young faccJiino (street 
porter) of the locality with great familiarity. In the 
long and hot days of the summer, when it is customary 
for all classes in South Italy to rest some hours in the 
middle of the day, I often surprised her standing at a 
window, which is on the side of the church, and looks 
out upon the via San Biagio dei Librai. What I saw 
convinced me that Concetta was not only not content 
with a life of celibacy, but was even pining for matri- 
mony. The misfortune of poor Angiola Maria had 
made a very unfavorable impression upon her mind, and 
whenever she heard it spoken of, her eyes rolled wildly 
in her head, and really made me afraid of her. 
22* 



258 CONCETTA. 

She continued in this unsettled state several months. 
It was insanity already developing itself in the form of 
hypochondria. She would often retire to places apart to 
give free vent to the tears which oppressed her. She 
would fly from companions, to murmur alone by her- 
self. She never laughed ; and, forgetting the orders 
which were given her, confounded the medicines she 
was preparing ; and if she talked at all, it would be to 
inquire, a thousand times over, about the streets of 
Naples, or about the personal liberty of the inhabitants, 
and of the felicity of those who can enjoy it, and other 
similar matters. 

To relieve my apprehension, as overseer of the in- 
firmary, I notified the abbess of the mental condition 
of Coucetta, and asked to have another conversa as- 
signed to her place, because she was continually making 
mistakes with the medicines, using wrong labels, put- 
ting bottles upon the wrong shelves, etc., etc., and con- 
cluded by saying, that I was not willing to be respon- 
sible for any disaster which might happen from that 
cause ; to which this inefiicient woman replied : — ^ 

" Do you know that jon are a bird of bad onjen ? " 

I was silenced, and said nothing more about Coucetta. 
But a few days later, her oavu sister having jierceived 
symptoms which indicated to her, as they already had 
to me, that Coucetta was not in her right mind, called 
the abbess to the parlatorio, and begged her to take into 
consideration the mental condition of her sister, before 



CONCETTA. 259 

it should be too late. This appeal Avas of no avail. 
The stupid abbess contented herself with remitting the 
invalid to the protection of the miraculous virgin, del? 
Idria, superiore padrona of the convent. 

A few days subsequently, an old woman, who slept 
in the same room with Concetta, told the abbess that 
she had seen her companion, about daylight, sitting up 
in her bed, in the act of adjusting a handkerchief around 
her throat, and that she was only restrained from stran- 
gling herself by the cries which she, the old woman, 
made. 

" This evening, at the litany, I will have ora ^ro ea 
recited forty times," replied the abbess. 

One Sunday morning, before sunrise, the nuns were 
assembled listening to the holy mass. We go down to 
the comunchino by a stairway, which leads into a damp 
court-yard, around which runs a narrow corridor, with a 
very high dome, which is supported by pilasters. I was 
going down these stairs to the communion, and was 
scarcely half-way down, when I heard a noise as if some 
heavy body had' fallen to the earth. Involuntarily I 
covered my face with my hands, and thought imme- 
diately of the poor hypochondriac, Concetta. 

I ran down quickly as I could, and found the unfor- 
tunate creature lying on the ground. Believing her to 
be dead, I cried aloud for help. More than forty nuns 
were assembled in the comunichino at mass ; they heard 
my cry, but not one of them came out. After some 



1 



260 CONCETTA. 

time, one came down, with whose aid I succeeded in 
raising the poor woman from tlie ground and laying her 
upon a bench, perfectly unconscious. I then rang the 
vestry-bell for a priest to come and attend to her. 

Her left leg was put out of joint, lacerated and cov- 
ered with blood. She had fallen perpendicularly upon 
one of the pilasters which support the dome, and the 
flesh on the calves of her legs was horribly torn. She 
could hardly articulate a word. Two facchini, with a 
couple of sticks placed under a chair, carried her to her 
own room. The priest followed her, but soon left the 
room, for she gave him to understand that she did not 
w^ant him there. 

The place where Concetta attempted suicide was by 
the side of the church. The nuns made such a noise 
about it, going out of the comunichino, after the mass, 
that the people assembled in the church thought the 
convent was falling ; and their suspicions were con- 
firmed by the deportment of the priest, who, at my call, 
in great haste and apparent distress, left the church to 
enter the convent. 

Two hours subsequently there came an inspector of 
police and a notary, with a posse of policemen, de- 
manding admittance. The abbess attempted to prevent 
the entrance of these profane people into the convent ; 
but they insisted on coming in. 

"You know very well, Signor mio, that without ex- 
press orders from the Holy Father, I am forbidden to 



CONOETTA. 261 

receive into the cloister any one whatever, even though 
it were the sovereign himself." 

"And you, reverendissima, you cannot be ignorant 
that public order is superior to any orders which you 
can have from Eome." 

" You amaze me ! In what manner has public order 
been infringed in my convent ? " 

** It is said that a conversa has been maliciously pre- 
cipitated from an upper floor to the ground, and lies 
horribly mutilated ; and this act is, by some of the peo- 
ple, imputed to you." 

Imagine if you can the amazement of the abbess. 
With an entirely superfluous number of courtesies, she 
permitted them to enter, and led them herself to the 
room of Concetta, who had now partially recovered her 
senses. She submitted to the interrogations with ad- 
mirable self-possession, and deposed to the truth, attest- 
ing that she had thrown herself, premeditatedly, over 
the parapet, because her desire to commit suicide was 
irrepressible. On their demanding her reasons for 
wishing to put an end to her existence, she, educated 
to religious duties more closely than secular women 
generally are, groaned, and endeavored to respond; 
but whether it was because she was unable to articulate 
sounds, or because she repented, she remained silent ; 
then yawning, as though she would unhinge her jaws, 
she rolled her eyes about wildly, and with her hands re- 
pulsed the officers, and fell again into her insane state. 



262 CONCETTA. 

The inspector wrote out his notes of the examination, 
and departed. 

On the conscience of the abbess must have lain the 
burden of this catastrophe, for it was clearly her duty 
to appoint a watch over the actions of this woman, who 
for many months had shown unequivocal symptoms of 
mental aberration. Contiguous to the conversa's room 
was a small one, used as a wardrobe ; here a rope was 
found, with a slip-noose made in it, and in a neighboring 
recess a paper of poison. It was clear that she had been 
undecided which kind of death to choose, poison or 
the halter. 

Shoi-tly after this, came the Cardinal Eiario Sforza, 
recently exalted to the archiepiscopal see of Naples. 
He reproached the abbess with having permitted so 
much noise to be made about so small a matter as that 
which had just occurred, and for having allowed the 
police to violate, by their presence, the sacred refuge 
of virgins. 

"Do you know," said he, in a severe tone, "what 
respect the self-styled philosophers and liberals have for 
the cloister? They believe that tears and desperation 
reign in your seclusion, and that all your nuns repent 
ever having taken the veil. Now, by the publicity you 
have given to this trifling afilxir, you have contributed 
to give a coloring of truth to this slander. If the con- 
vent be not the tomb the canonized saints desire it to 
be, why should it bear the name? The living must 



CONCETTA. 263 

never know anything of what happens in the sepul- 
chre." 

The unhappy Concetta lived another twenty days, 
until her leo^ orano-rened. I did not leave her side, ex- 
cept for morning and evening prayers, nor cease to 
extend the dutiful comforts of charity to her. I often 
overheard her muttering to herself; at otherJ;imes I found 
a sad smile on her features, although she was suffering 
from the most acute pain. From some words which 
dropped from her lips, I understood that the poor creat- 
ure found herself in a critical state, which she wished 
to conceal by her death. 

"Yes, if death does not come quickly . . . I shall 
be inevitably betrayed . . . already my bosom . . . 
cursed . . . excommunicated . . . go to perdition . . . 
don't talk to me of heaven, and of the Madonna ; if the 
Madonna aids the unfortunate, why does she not come 
to my assistance, and to that of the being I feel to be 
alive within me ? " 

She spoke not unfrequently of a young man, with 
black eyes, who had been in the habit of ogling her at 
the window in the church ; but could not be persuaded 
to receive the priest with the sacrament. Abandoning 
herself to the most gloomy desperation, she repeated 
over and over again that she was hopelessly damned. 
Horrid and strange hallucinations came over her, and 
saddened her last moments. 



264 COXCETTA. 

One night while every one was asleep, except two or 
three who watched at her bedside, she cried : — 

"This place is infested with demons, — see them 
there, — one by one! Alas! you, in that corner, 
why do you make faces at me? And you, over there, 
why do you shake the walls, and stick your horns into 
the ceiling?" 

Another time she said : — 

"You innocent creatures, who are not contaminated 
by impurity, fly, fly from contact with me ! If you 
should become stained with it, alas ! three years of 
penitence would not suflSce to purify your souls ! " 

The nuns, fully convinced that she was possessed by 
a malign spirit, thought to exorcise it, by sending for a 
monk cross-bearer. The feeling was universal in the 
convent that the place was invaded by demons, and 
the fright was general. 

The ceremony of exorcism was performed with great 
solemnity ; but it had no efiect. The nuns crowded the 
place where the ceremony was performed, continually 
making the sign of the cross, and standing with open 
mouths, expecting to see the figure of Satan escape from 
the body of the poor creature ; but their curiosity was 
not gratified, — it was not yet near the ninth month! 

She would not permit the priest to enter her room to 
recite the prayers ; and only at the very moment when 
her spirit was passing away, and she could no longer 
prevent it, was he allowed to come in. She died about 



DEATH OF CONCETTA. 265 

the time of vespers. Her beauty, which had entirely 
disappeared with her loss of reason, reappeared on the 
features of the corpse. What a serenity rested on 
her countenance ! And what a contrast to what it had 
been, till now, convulsed with madness, and troubled 
by her private grief ! 

It was sunset. A single ray of the departing lumi- 
nary, darting through the window, rested for a moment 
on the face of the departed, as if to take a farewell kiss, 
and even that messenger of divine compassion had dis- 
appeared a moment later ! 

Her spirit had been set free, — mine was yet in bond- 
age ! I stripped the flower-vases of some flowers, and 
threw a handful over the body, and went to my own 
room with a heavy heart. 

23 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THEFT IN THE COlSrVENT. 

Numerous instances of stealing in the convent— Sacredness of the objects no 
exception— How the sisters cheat in confectionery and medicines. 

Suppose a baud of thirty brigands, who, after having 
stopped, beaten, and despoiled you of all your effects, to 
be holding a council among themselves to decide whether 
they should not take your life also. Among these fiends, 
rendered ferocious by their own misdeeds, would not 
there be found, probably, some one, less sanguinary than 
the rest, who would intercede for your life? And if, 
instead of thirty, there should be fifty or sixty, would 
the chances in your favor not be augmented ? Or, sup- 
pose a band of one, three, or five hundred. If in one of 
these last cases it would be safe to bet ten to one that 
your life would be saved, it would be almost impossible 
that among such a number there should not be found 
some one to make some effort to save your life. 

I need not seek for an illustration clearer than this to 
show that vice and wickedness more readily find refuge 
in small than in large communities. " Woe to him who 
is alone ! " says the Scripture. Egotism is common to 
a part, not to all, of the human race, and Adam, created 

266 • 



INSTANCES or THEFT. 267 

in the image of God, symbolizes rather the species than 
the individual. 

The convent contains within its walls all the vices of 
the city, without any of its virtues or advantages, and, as 
modern civilization progresses under the fostering care 
of free institutions, so do the monastic congregations 
assume more and more distinctly the form of a tolerated 
camorra.* 

I certainly have no hesitation in affirming that there 
may sometimes be found worthy and exemplary nuns, — 
nuns worthy of all respect, whose virtues entitle them 
to rank among the noble and religious women of any 
age ; but their number is so small that they are com- 
pletely lost sight of in the immense majority of those of 
the common order. To the monasteries of women may 
be justly applied that saying of the prophet, " One man 
among a thousand have I found ; but a woman among all 
these have I not found." (Ecclesiastes.) 

Not even from the low crime of theft are they exempt 
in the convent. I would never have believed it if I had 
not been a sufferer myself. It seemed a very strange 
thing to me to be told, the first day I entered the con- 
vent, by a conversa, in an undertone, not to leave a box 
of dolci, which had been presented to me, on the table ; 
for if I did it would be a miracle if I were ever to see it 
again. In passing around the building I had seen sev- 
eral carpenters and masons at work for the community, 

* Camorra, in Italian, means an organized system of villany and wickedness. 



268 INSTANCES OF THEFT. 

and supposed that the conversa had reference to the 
rapacity of these people when she cautioned me against 
thieves. After a short residence there, however, I dis- 
covered that the nuns themselves were the thieves, and 
that thej found it necessary to keep everything under 
lock and key to protect themselves from each other, 
from bread even to needles I If it was necessary, 
therefore, for the abbess to guard the safety of the lock 
to the cloister, it was equally so for each nun to see that 
her own effects were kept equally well protected. 

There was one time when this ignominious habit had 
taken so deep root, that a week did not pass in which 
some theft was not committed ! 

An educanda forgot one day to take the key out of 
her commode, and her own little savings of five Neapoli- 
tan piastres (a piastre = ninety-six cents) were stolen. 
When coffee was served, you never saw a silver spoon, 
and a rosary with medallions was once stolen from the 
coro itself! 

A conversa was one day being measured for a new 
dress ; she went to her room to get the money to pay 
the dress-maker ; at her return her dress was no longer 
where she had put it, and she never saw it more. 

A silver piletta for holy water, which hung on the 
wall at the head of my bed, was stolen from me. I was 
compelled to submit to the loss of this family relic, 
which was very precious to me, and say nothing about 
it for fear of making enemies. At another time they 



INSTANCES OF THEFT. 269 



it was known that I was on the track of the thief, it was 
left in one corner of the corridor with the mark half 
picked out. It is further to be noted that these thefts 
were committed in places where artisans or other world's 
people never enter, and for the most part on Sundays, 
when they are never permitted to enter the building at all ! ^ 

On the evening of a certain festa, being indisposed, I 
retired early. About the hour when the bell imposing 
silence was rung, I heard some cries proceeding from the 
lower floor, and a confused noise of going and coming 
of the nuns on the stairs, and a great shaking of the win- 
dows. As a death was not an unfrequent occurrence in 
the convent, I imagined that some misfortune of this 
kind had happened ; and as, since the day that I had 
decided to die a nun (or rather that they supposed I 
had), I had been assigned a separate room upon the 
third floor, I now arose hastily and ran to see if anything 
had happened to my aunt. The reader will not have 
forgotten the old blind and decrepit nun of whom I have 
already spoken. I met her on the way, supported by 
her conversa, and very much distressed. 

"What a horrible thing ! " she exclaimed, shuddering. 

" What means this tumult, aunt Constanza ? " I asked. 

" How, figlia mia, do you not know of the sacrilege 
which has been committed ? " 

"Where?" 

" O madonna mia I " she added, covering her wrinkled 

23* 



270 SACEILEGIOUS THEFT. 

face with her hands, " they have stripped the Virgin del 
Buou Consiglio of all her jewels ! " 

"Is it possible?" 

"It is as true as it is that we must all die." 

I passed into the coro, and found that the little altar 
of that virgin had been really stripped of everything. 
There was a picture painted by a master hand, in a frame 
with a heavy cornice, with a glass door in front ; the 
glass was some six inches removed from the canvas, 
and was permanently closed with a key, and in the space 
which separated it from the frame there were bunches 
of flowers in silver, of highly creditable workmanship. 

This lock had been forced, and the crown of silver 
and the silver flowers, which from remote times had 
adorned this picture of the Virgin and Child, were mis- 
sing. The thieves, not contented with carrying off these 
pious offerings, had also abstracted other objects of value, 
such as ear-rings, finger-rings, diadems, collars, and 
other jewels, and had torn the picture in many places in 
removing the nails or pins by which these diflerent ob- 
jects had been suspended. What a sad impression this 
picture produced, thus vandalized, perforated with holes 
and torn, in the haste probably to escape ! 

This sacrilegious theft occurred during the adminis- 
tration of the before-mentioned rigorous abbess. The 
public newspapers whispered of it. 

The next morning she sent the superior to call the 
vicar, inviting also the other functionaries of the con- 



SACRILEGIOUS THEFTS. 271 

vent without forgetting the mistress of the converse. I 
had, unfortunately, been assigned to this office, and had 
the double burden besides of the infirmary and druggist, 
— hierarchical duties, which, to say the truth, afibrded 
me some mental occupation and relief; for I took pains 
to study materia medica and clinical medicine pretty 
thoroughly while I remained there. 

The vicar cardered me to call every member of th® 
community down into the refectory, excluding only the 
blind and other infirm, whose condition exonerated them 
from all suspicion. The nuns were included, and they 
alone numbered sixty-two. 

Except a few who presented themselves willingly, as 
they were called, the others vented their rage upon me ; 
each one insulting me in her own particular manner. 
These weak and ignorant women, whom Christ in his 
infinite mercy has elected as his brides from among all 
those who have been taken from the rib of Adam, secure 
of not being turned out of doors after once pronouncing 
the vows, allow themselves to use the most terrible im- 
pertinences toward the choral nuns. One of them said 
to me : — 

" Have you not got two hands as well as I ? Who 
knows that you are not the thief yourself ?" 

" You will do better," I replied, " to use such language 
to your equals," 

" We are all made of the same clay," she replied, 
simpering. • 



272 SACRILEGIOUS THEFTS. 

I was silent from motives of prudence. It took me 
an hour to assemble the whole community. Some were 
induced to come only by prayers ; others by threats. In 
the mean while the vicar, who was left alone with the 
abbess, warmly enjoined upon her to keep hidden from 
the world outside the opprobrious occurrence which had 
just happened, reminding her of the invasion of the 
convent by the police on the occasion of the attempted 
suicide of Concetta, and citing, as I was afterwards 
told, the maxim that " one's dirty linen should ahvays 
be washed at home." 

But very austere, and otherwise severe, were the ad- 
monitions which he addressed to the sisters when they 
were all assembled in his presence. I shall never forget 
the epilogue. 

" Your convent," said he, "has become a Bosco di 
Bovino,* where they steal without fear. There, at 
least, there are no saints and madonnas to steal." 

He then interdicted the thief from the communion, 
and in the name of the irritated virgin, imposed upon 
her, also, the duty of making immediate restitution of 
the things stolen, leaving finally over the entire com- 
munity the shadow of the possibility of an ecclesiasti- 
cal censure. 

Some cried, others were enraged ; one fainted, while 



* The Bosco di BoTino is a piece of woods, occupying a narrow defile, watered 
by the Qgrvaro, and inaccessible except at its two extremities. It was formerly 
noted as being the favorite haunt of the brigands of the province of Capitanata. 



SACRILEGIOUS THEFTS. 273 

others left the room making ugly faces and gestures at 
the vicar, as they went out of the door. The following 
morning every one, without a single exception, went 
down to the communion, and two days after six ducats 
were found deposited on the little altar ! 

As that sum was not a twentieth part of the value of 
the things stolen, it was thought to be an earnest inten- 
tion of the thief to make a complete atonement, and 
that the balance might be forthcoming ere long. But 
time passed on, the afiair blew over, and the thief de- 
posited no more money. The ugly conviction, remained 
in the minds of the greater part, that the theft could not 
have been successfully accomplished if the perpetrator 
had not had accomplices within the buildmg, and re- 
ceivers outside. 

There was another and similar sacrilegious theft. 
From the press, or pantry of the deposito (the general 
safe of the nuns) , there was carried off, at one time, 
an hundred ducats ! It was a sum destined to be in- 
vested to produce an annual income to feed the lamp 
suspended before the picture of the Immacolata. The 
thief was never discovered. 

Example third. In rendering an account of her ab- 
bessate, my aunt discovered a deficit of some thousands 
of ducats in the strong chest of the community. The 
poor woman could make no explanation of this enor- 



274 DOLCI AND MEDICINES. 

mous loss, as she had never kept the key, that having 
been from time immemorial consigned to the secretary 
and other elders. She was never able to discover how 
this had been brought about, and I know very well that 
the anxiety she suffered from this cause hastened her 
death. 

Another species of abuse is tolerated in the cloister, 
and that is the scandalous gains which it is permitted 
the nuns to derive from profits in the traffic in dolci and 
medicines. 

I have said before, that I had been assigned to the 
charge of the infirmary and of the drugs. For greater 
exactness, I should add, that in this duty I was only an 
assistant to another, whose advanced age and infirmity, 
however, rarely permitted her to come down to the 
office, and she confined herself to the transmitting the 
orders hy the hands of her conversa, who, unfortu- 
nately, was one of the most impertinent and obstinate 
in the convent. 

I was five years in these offices, during which time I 
repeatedly protested against the exaggerated prices 
which were charged for the medicine, which ought cer- 
tainly to be afforded cheaper than those of the public 
druggists, because of there being nothing to pay, either 
for rent, light, or sei-vice, nor fees to the physician; and 
besides, there could be no good reason given why any 
profit should be demanded. 



DOLCI AND MEDICINES. 275 

I one day made the most energetic complaints at being 
compelled to sell, at ten cents an ounce, an article which 
I had bought myself at thirty-two cents a pound, — that 
is to say, at about four times the cost ! 

Another time, I had instructed the portress not to 
receive from the peasants, who would probably bring 
them, any more double violets, which we were accus- 
tomed to buy every spring, because I already had suffi- 
cient on hand. But the conversa, who was regularly 
bribed by the peasant from whom she was in the habit 
of receiving the flowers and herbs, was very indignant 
towards me because of this order. 

One morning the bell rang for me, and I went down. 
There were two peasants, who had brought in some 
large baskets full of violets. The conversa had admitted 
them and weighed their herbs, and demanded that I 
should pay for them. I said : — 

"I have no need of violets this year." 

This impudent creature, placing her hands on her 
hips, answered in the most insolent manner : — 

"You are not the apothecary, only the assistant of my 
mistress. She wants them, and you must act accord- 
ingly. Command who can ; obey who must ! " 

"I have never obeyed, nor will I, commands calling 
upon me to do that which is repugnant to my con- 
science. Now I will show your mistress my mode of 
proceeding." 

Saying which, I went directly to the abbess, to whose 



276 GENERAL ABUSES. 

care I reconsigned the key of the office, aud from that 
time I could never be persuaded to enter it. 

I could relate here a great many other similar mis- 
deeds and abuses committed under my own observation 
during my twenty years of monastic life in different 
convents, which always escaped punishment, either 
from the amor j)ropria of caste, or for want of proper 
judicial investigation. The priory, the wardrobe, the 
store-room, the treasury, and the other branches of 
the administration, how much corruption do they not 
conceal ! 

But I need not detain the reader any longer wdth the 
details of facts so extremely disagreeable. To give a 
vague, but a just idea of the abuses of every nature 
which infest the convents of both sexes, it is sufficient 
to remember that under the past government theft aud 
the camorra exuded, so to say, at every pore of Neapol- 
itan society, beginning at the throne, traversing the 
sanctuary, and finally spreading through the entire pop- 
ulation. 

Who has not heard of the answer of King Ferdinand 
to that statesman who took the liberty to denounce be- 
fore him the malversation in office of an eminent func- 
tionary : — 

"It is true he is a swindler, a cheat, and a thief; but 
then, you know, he is a good Christian ! " 



CHAPTEK XV. 

THE ACOLYTES. 

The young priests patronized by the nuns — Ceremony during Holy Week, in the 
convent, of washing the disciples' feet, one of the nuns personating the Saviour 
and others the disciples — To see this ceremony, four acolytes climb to a posi- 
tion where they can observe it, and, at the same time, talk with the nuns 1 — I 
am nominated for the office of sacristan — Conspiracy of the nuns to inveigle 
me with one of the young priests— Its failure as regards me — Its success with 
the poor acolyte — Final resolve. 

With the exception of the little republic of San 
Marino, I believe every state, however small, has its 
capital city ; nor is there one which does not support 
two sorts of public edifices, — one, sacred to devotional 
purposes ; the other, to amusements. 

Now the convent is a small republican state, placed 
under the high dominion of the Holy Father; it has 
its metropolis also, supplied, not less than the others, 
with its sacred ceremonies and its dramatic entertain- 
ments. The metropolis of the convent is the church. 
Two different parts, two separate functions, every one 
belonging to the service of the church must know how 
to perform, — one, that of the sacred minister ; the other, 
that of the dramatic actor. 

We have already had enough to say about the dramas 
enacted in the confessionals, and the dualistic doctrines 

24 277 



278 . THE ACOLYTES. 

of the confessors. Let us now make some short excur-^ 
sions among some scenes in which i chierici (the aco- 
lytes), are the performers. 

Four youths, dedicated to the service of the church, 
aspired to the sacerdozio (priesthood) ; but they had no 
sooner taken holy orders than they were required to 
leave, in order that their places might be filled by others, 
unless they should be able to secure the protection of 
some of the nuns, who have the power to retain them in 
their places in preference to their older predecessors ! 

Fortune favors the young. These acolytes had their 
protectresses in the convent, and the protection of a nun 
is worth something to the young priest. Some wealthy 
Neapolitan gentlemen and ecclesiastics long ago be- 
queathed, in favor of San Gregorio Armeno, some lega- 
cies for the use of the patrimonies, of chapkiuships, 
marriages, and for acts of benevolence. The acolytes, 
therefdl'e, who had succeeded in inspiring any of the 
more potent among the nuns with feelings of friendship, 
or any warmer regards, Avere fortunate ; for they pos- 
sessed not only the power of protecting them, but they 
were also able to traffic in votes for the abbessate, and 
enjoyed, besides, many exclusive privileges ; one of 
which was, to dispense these benefices according to their 
own pleasure. 

The acolyte, when protected in this manner, is certain 
of securing, sooner or later, the chaplaincy, in which 



CEREMONY OP WASHING FEET. 279 

case his protectress often makes a festa at her own ex- 
pense on the occasion of his celebrating his first mass. 
I remember one such acoljte, who, on becoming Dei 
gratia, priest, received at the hands of his patroness, 
not only the expense of the festa, but also a sumptuous 
banquet at his own house, at which twenty-four persons 
assembled, coming in gala dresses and in carriages which 
the nun had borrowed from her own family for the occa- 
sion. 

The abbess approved of such scandalous prodigality, 
and even encouraged it, saying : " I have done the same 
myself. I can assure you it is the custom of the con- 
vent." At the same time, however, in an undertone, 
she would caution the nuns not to make such exhibitions 
of their extravagance in my presence, and they, knowing 
my sentiments, complied with her request. It was on 
this account, that, on seeing me enter the room, their 
conversation would be suddenly interrupted, and in send- 
ing the before-mentioned dinner to the priest, they used 
every precaution that I should know nothing of the 
sumptuousness of it. 

It was the custom on Holy Week to decorate one por- 
tion of the coro magnificently, to commemorate the 
ceremony of the washing of feet. On the altars were 
deposited the symbols of the passion, with all the 
silver belonging to the nuns, which an infinite number 
of li«jhted wax caudles served to illuminate. 



280 CEEEMONT OF WASHING FEET. 

Shall I characterize this scene as a comedy? It 
grieves me, in speaking of religions matters, to use this 
term. But what can be more comical, more ridiculous, 
more profane to Christian purity, than to see an imper- 
sonation of the Saviour, not only in a smooth and beard- 
less face, but also in a woman's dress, engaged in washing 
the feet of a dozen equally beardless apostles in petti- 
coats and silk stockings ! I believe if the Moi-mons of 
America, communists and heretics as they are, should, 
on entering a Eoman Catholic church, see the Son of 
God thus transformed, they would not hesitate to return 
with open arms to the bosom of the" Mother Church ! 
The four acolytes of the convent were dying with pious 
curiosity to see these holy apostles without their stock- 
ings ! At a late hour of Holy Thursday, when the 
church was closed to outside barbarians, and when I, too, 
had retired, they managed to climb the coro, by lean- 
ing the longest ladder they could find in the church 
against the wall ; by this means they were enabled to 
get upon the cornice of the coro itself, where they were 
spectators, and sometimes even actors in the drama ! 
Fortunately things passed off quietly and no trouble 
grew out of it. I had heard of this project the day before 
from the nuns themselves, and therefore withdrew so as 
to leave the actors free and unembarrassed. 

Eight years had then passed since I entered the clois- 
ter, and during this interval of time I had never discov- 
ered in myself the least inclination, either towards a 



CEEEMONY OF WASHING FEET. 281 

priest, a monk, or an acolyte, or even for my confessor, 
notwithstanding his persistent endeavors, under one pre- 
text or another, to get me frequently into the confes- 
sional. It was not because my heart at twenty-seven 
was yet dead to the soft influence of love, or because I 
had aspired to the savage honor of looking upon poor 
lovers, as did the rigid Cato. No, I was really dis- 
gusted with the hypocritical and simulated bigotry of 
the nuns, and with their always making a parade of 
some virtue and candor which they did not possess. I 
was disgusted, too, with the persecutions with which 
they pursued any one of their number who, by any 
unhappy fatality, had conceived an affection for a man 
who was neither a priest nor an acolyte. 

I easily detected their deceit and their egotism of 
caste. One who would frankly own to me her weakness 
for some priest or acolyte, I would with equal frankness 
pity, as was sometimes the case with some educanda, 
conversa, or nun, who made a confidant of me and con- 
fided to my keeping the secret of this passion. I sym- 
pathized with them with a heart given to sentiments of 
humanity, and participating in the weakness of its na- 
ture ; with a heart which, while even under the coarse 
flannel of the monastic habit, still palpitated with the 
feelings natural to woman. 

I was once near to rekindling the smouldering fire of 
love in my heart, not, however, for a religioso. I asked 
the divine aid and the flame was extinguished. A pas- 

24* 



282 APPOINTED SAGRESTANA. 

sion at that time would only have aggravated my mis- 
fortune. He, towards whom my heart was turned, was a 
physician. I loved him from spontaneous inspiration. 
I loved him in the most recondite recesses of the affec- 
tions, before the reason of it was perceived. In my 
position in the infirmary, as well as in the cells of the 
infirm, I was often brought into contact with him. I 
accompanied him with eyes humbled to the earth, with 
the sentiment of the abdication I had made of every 
tender emotion, and with the conviction that, under the 
vow of mouastical chastity, I should have been deemed 
despicable enough by him had a single look of mine 
betrayed my passion. 

Ah, who that has not adopted the sackcloth, can know 
how deaf to the invocations of the heart is the isola- 
tion of the cloister ! He never knew anything of my 
efforts to repress these palpitating rebels ; nor, as a 
consequence, could he know of my triumph. So much 
the better. I knew afterwards that his heart was dedi- 
cated to another woman less unfortunate than I. He 
died in the flower of his years and in the best part of 
his career. Was he lamented by the woman that he 
loved? 

Let us return to our story. 

Two years passed in the above-named office and I was 
nominated and appointed sagi-estana. It is a duty, 
which more than any other, brings the nun in contact 



CONSPIRACY OF THE NUNS. 283 

with the priests. Several of the sisters thought I would 
not be able to complete my term of office without fall- 
ing in love with some one of them ; while others, more 
determined, arranged a conspiracy to accomplish my 
fall. My predecessor in this office, in giving me the 
keys to the sacred objects, told me that of the four 
acolytes, one only could be relied upon for the prompt 
performance of his duties, and on him I must rely. She 
was a good and an honest woman and I followed her 
counsel. 

Meanwhile, the conspirators followed me anxiously 
to assure themselves if, and how, and when, I should 
fall into their trap. What matter was it to thera if their 
champion was of a vulgar figure, grossly ignorant, and 
very coarse in his manners? In the service of the 
sagrestia, I had given the preference to him, because it 
was of him that my predecessor had spoken to me. 
This fact was a consoling augury to them ! 

It was very natural that the action of the conspiracy 
should concentrate on him. Of how much iniquity is 
not idleness the parent ? The sisters of the community 
often found time to go down to the comunichiuo and to 
torture this poor fellow in this way : — 

" Now you are happy, — are you not ? " 

"Why?" 

"Because you have at last a young and smart sa- 
grestana." 

Another would say : — 



284 CONSPIRACY OF THE NUNS. 

" How lucky you are ! " 

"Why?" 

" It is said the sagrestana is delighted with you ; in 
fact, that she is in love with you." 

" What an idea ! From what, is it inferred ?" 

" From the preference which she gives to you always 
over the other acolytes, and the confidence she reposes 
in you." 

As I have said elsewhere, I suffered more or less all 
the time from nervous affections, and convulsions were 
periodical with me. At my every indisposition they 
would call at the postern, and with the impudence of 
courtesans salute him in my name. Nor did their impu- 
dence stop here ; they wrote and delivered a note to 
him, signing my name to it. About the same time they 
stole a linen pocket-handkerchief from me and presented 
it to him in my name. 

It will not be deemed a matter of surprise that the poor 
youth's head began to grow giddy. Some one announced 
to him that I was seriously ill, and he was seen to draw 
from his pocket the identical handkerchief and wipe his 
eyes, unable any longer to hide his grief. 

" He is at last desperately in love with you ! " they 
said, rubbing their hands, and transported with joy. 

Of the comical passion of the young man I became 
assured when I was scarcely convalescent and entered 
upon my duties again. I was told the story of the note 
and the handkerchief, and was so much enraged that I 



C0NSPIRAC3Y OF THE NUNS. 285 

hurled the most indignant reproaches on the heads of 
these intriguing nuns. I gave him to understand, very- 
soon, that the note was a forgery, and that the handker- 
chief which had been presented to him in my name had 
been stolen from a bundle of clothes which I had but 
just before put up for the washerwoman. He received 
these bitter truths with a sad face, and pledged himself 
to return the note to me, for I wanted it to pursue some 
investigations as to the authorship of it, on which I had 
already determined ; but, either because of the prompt- 
ings of others, or from spontaneous reluctance, he never 
returned it to me. 

The truth is, that the poor fellow was deeply enamored 
of me. His face became pale and thin, his nose sharp, and 
his eyes sunk in his head. His mouth, naturally large, 
had, from his face having grown so thin, taken the pro- 
portions of that of a lizard. I reproved him unfeelingly. 

" Fool ! " I said to him ; " do you not understand that 
you have become the laughing-stock of a parcel of nuns 
not less foolish than designing, who, while making a jest 
of your sincerity, would like, at the same time, to gain 
another advantage ; they would like to get an oppor- 
tunity out of it to molest me, and, if possible, to bring 
my reputation down to a level with their own? Come 
to yourself again, control your folly, and be careful in 
future to comport yourself more wisely in the discharge 
of your duties, if you do not wish to lose both your 
bread and your honor." 



286 CONSPIRACY OF THE NUNS. 

He replied that he now saw the excess of his own 
folly ; that he had not, however, been the author of this 
ill-fated passion, but that such and such nuns had by 
degrees insinuated it into his heart ; finally, that his 
love had reached that point of intensity that he had no 
hope whatever of being able to control it. 

"In that case," I replied, "there remains for you but 
a single means of escape : it is hard, but inevitable." 

" Say what it is ; I shall obey your counsel, whatever 
it may be." 

" The jests of these women are like tigers' claws ; to- 
day they laugh at your simplicity ; to-morrow they would 
dig your grave. Listen to my advice : seek a position 
in some other church, and bring me your resignation of 
your charge here as soon as possible." 

The dry and decided tone in which I spoke was, how- 
ever at variance with the feeling of compassion which I 
felt at being obliged to suggest so severe a remedy to 
the poor fellow. But there was no other course. 

This interview, which had lasted scarcely ten minutes, 
was concluded on the part of the acolj^te with a flood of 
tears, and was interrupted by the arrival of the sagres- 
tano (sexton). 

Convinced that the nuns were hatching some now 
criminal project, and grieving, besides, to ruin the pros- 
pects of the young man, who had really no other fault 
than that of having been born half-witted, I decided to 
make one more effort to save him. I went to the abbess 



INTERVIEW WITH THE ABBESS. 287 

and besought her to appoint some else to the office of 
sagrestana i»my place, telling her, that since my illness 
I felt myself unequal to the task of sustaining the burden 
of that office. 

She replied that she did not think my health was so 
much impaired as I seemed to suppose ; besides, it was 
not proper for a nun to be relieved of an office until the 
expiration of her term of service. My confessor, who 
also took an interest in the matter, united his prayers to 
mine to induce her to make the change ; but she remained 
inflexible to our reiterated demands, and persevered in 
her refusal. 

Irritated finally by my continued solicitations for the 
same thing, she said to me, one day : — 

" Why is it you desire to be relieved of your office ? 
Is it because some silly girls have accused you of hav- 
ing an amorous commerce with the acolyte? What a 
foolish woman you are ! They themselves have done 
the same thing, are doing it, and will continue to do it ! 
If you have a grain of sense left you will not care a fig 
for it." 

Things went on, therefore, until the conclusion of the 
drama without arriving at any spontaneous dissolution. 
One day, whilst I was singing in the coro, the enamored 
young man fainted in the church. The building was 
crowded ; a cry for silence was heard ; the priests in the 
vestry were very much annoyed ; the acolytes enjoyed 



288 DISMISSAL OF THE ACOLYTES. 

it ; the nuns dropped their masks and discharged their 
arrows at their victim, exclaiming in chori* : — 

" How ridiculous this is ! How stupid ! The holy- 
mass is turned into a comedy. These scenes will bring 
the convent to shame ! " 

Shortly after I found the acolyte, who was struggling 
with his tears. 

"We are all of us dismissed," said he. 

"Is it possible?" 

"It is. My God, what will become of us?" 

" All four of you dismissed ? Have you then dragged 
your colleagues into your ruin, also ? " 

"No; the ruin shall be mine alone. The others will 
only be sent awaj?^ for appearance' sake ; they will soon 
return. But I shall come back no more ! " 

"They have done well to dismiss you so politely," I 
added. "I am heartily sorry for you, but your situa- 
tion in this place had become insupportable." 

The mhabitants of these volcanic regions, like their 
wine, are full of fire ; and I am a Neapolitan. Burning 
with indignation, I went directly to the abbess and ex- 
pressed my satisfaction with the dismissal of the clerks, 
but did not neglect to reproach her for her obstinacy in 
retaining me in oflSice after I had desired to resign it. 

" If you had accepted my resignation when I insisted 
so strongly upon it," I said, "you would not have been 
under the cruel necessity of putting into execution a 
precaution which will damage the reputation of your 



THEIK EETUKN. 289 

convent not less than these poor clerks. But that which is 
done cannot be undone. A simple explanation remains 
for me to demand of you. Is it real and positive, or only 
simulated, this dismissal of the four clerks? In other 
words, is it your intention, after a time, to recall three 
of them, leaving one alone to suffer the penalty of ulti- 
mate exclusion?" 

"No," she replied ; "Heaven will not permit it. The 
exclusion will be general and definitive ; it will be for 
all." 

" Will you have sufficient firmness, do you believe, to 
resist the manoeuvres of the nuns who protect them ? " 

We were just at that moment in front of a little chapel 
dedicated to the Virgin. The abbess turned towards 
the picture, raised her hand, and said : — 

" I swear by the holy Mary that not one of them shall 
ever return ! " 

"And I swear," I replied, "that if one of them enters 
by one door, I will depart by the other ! " 

We separated in peace. 

But the poor woman was firmer in her promises than 
in her deeds. She counted the votes which were indis- 
pensable to re-elect her to the abbessate ; and eight days 
subsequently the acolytes returned. 

The intrigues of the nuns did not cease here. The 
clique now attempted to defame me ; with no very great 
success, however. 

One only of the four acolytes who had been dismissed 

25 



290 FINAL RESOLVE. 

from the church was subsequently denounced to the car- 
dinal by the confessors and the monks, who, with an 
excessive desire to surrender himself to the wishes of 
his creatures, obliged the poor fellow to depose the 
clerical habit. 

The abbess had failed to keep her oath ! I was de- 
termined to keep mine, and I made this day a fixed 
resolution to leave, at whatever cost, a place which was 
continually agitated by the contemptible machinations 
of wicked women, and overflowing with the bitterness 
of envy ! 



CHAPTEE XVI. 

CHIAEINA (little CLARA). 



Discontent with convent life — Failing health — Appeal through my physician to 
the pope — Opposition of the Ciinonico— Entrance of Chiarina into the 
convent — Her great beauty — She is confided to my care — Her delicate 
health — Her distressing cough — The nuns make fun of her suffering — Ill- 
treated by her nurse — Her brother takes her from the convent — Circum- 
stances compel her to return — I vote against her readmission — Her sudden 



The moral sufferings and incessant agitations I had 
endured ; the coercive restraints ; the sedentary life ; 
the unhealthy atmosphere of the convent, during the 
winter months ; and, above all, the petty annoyances 
of which I had become the victim, — all these had too 
seriously affected my health for me not to begin to think 
of some means of relief. In the mean time, my very 
dear sister Josephine had died, who, more than any one 
else, used to feel for and sympathize with me in my 
misfortune. My grief at not having been able to 
embrace her, nor to see her a single moment before she 
died, made me feel still more keenly a sincere repentance 
for having taken a vow diametrically opposed to my 
inclinations. 

It is, nevertheless, very true that as time passed I 
found my condition much changed. Having now 

291 



292 DISCONTENT WITH CONVENT LIFE. 

an'ived at mature age, I was able, I thought, to take 
care of myself, sicut in quantum; besides which, 
enjoyiug more than one little pension, I should be able 
to place myself, I thought, in one of the many riiiri 
("retreats," so called) of the city, which are less 
rigidly governed by monastic rules, and more conform- 
able to my own inclinations ; to which, besides, I should 
prefer having recourse, rather than to the hospitality of 
my mother's second husband. She, seeing me a prey 
to such desperation, was exceedingly grieved, and, from 
time to time, manifested great remorse at ever having 
placed me in the convent. She promised me then her 
co-operation in every attempt which could be urged, on 
my part, to obtain more freedom ; and faithfully main- 
tained her promise. 

But in the convent my condition was somewhat modi- 
fied. An illness of a few days had terminated in the 
death of my second aunt, — she, who for so many years 
had filled the office of abbess. Gaetanella was no 
longer in my service. After the circumstances which 
occurred with Angiola Maria, — circumstances in which 
she manifested such slight regard for me, and no 
humanity whatever towards the poor iusanc woman, — I 
had yielded her to my aunt, and, in exchange, had pro- 
vided myself with a young girl, who had just entered 
the convent, a native of a small town near Naples. 
She was named Maria Giuscppa. She was seventeen 
years old, and had a prepossessing face. Ilcr family 



DISCONTENT WITH CONYENT LIFE. 293 

had been at great expense to place her here, and she 
had not yet experienced any homesickness on account 
of the loss of her personal liberty. She had, from the 
first, conceived a strong attachment for me, and pro- 
tested every day that she was ready to follow me 
wherever circumstances might lead. me. 

From the windows of my prison, there stood a house, 
at a window of which I often used to see a young nun 
sitting, engaged in conversation with her friends and 
relatives. I looked at her again and again, — examined 
her dress. There could be no doubt she belonged to 
some convent di Glausura, and not to that class of 
bigots called monache di casa. By what means had she 
recovered the inestimable pleasure of again crossing the 
paternal threshold ? 

The desire to ascertain something more about this, 
to me a wonder, entirely occupied my mind. I dis- 
covered, finally, that she belonged to the clausura in the 
convent of Nola, and was enabled to remain a long time 
outside of the cloister, having once adduced her motives 
and renewed her leave of absence once in six months, 
by which means she obtained an indefinite prolongation 
of time. 

What a consoling ray of light was this to penetrate 
into the darkness of my prison ! 

Why, profiting by the message Providence had per- 
haps sent to me, why should not even I be able to 
obtain a similar release, and lead a similar kind of life? 

25* 



294 FAILING HE.iLTH. 

That my health was suiffering from my confinement was 
palpably evident. I was subject to nervous fits of sick- 
headache and to spasms which had already seriously 
affected my complexion. 

Plump, fresh, rosy, full of spirit and of happiness, 
were the greater part of my companions. Thoughtless- 
ness, idleness, and apathy were as beneficial to them as 
the poultry-yard is to the hens. On the contrary, I was 
becoming every day more pallid and meagre, my cheeks 
more sunken, my eyes more and more dull, and my hair 
fell out by the handful. 

I determined, therefore, to make an attempt to get 
away. Pursuing my plan, I got one of the physicians 
to the convent to make the necessary certificate as to 
my health, to which I added my own supplication ; and 
these I forwarded to Rome without delay. I felt so 
secure of a successful issue, that, from the day on which 
I sent them, I began to count the minutes I had yet to 
suffer. I would say to myself, " Now the courier has 
delivered my petition ; now the Holy Father is reading 
it, with his mind disposed in my favor ; now he has 
granted my prayers, signed and sealed the document, 
and given it to the proper authority to be despatched to 
Naples ; in a day or two the courier will return ; to-day 
is Thursday ; Saturday morning, early, good-by to 
the convent ! Oh, but these two da^^s will seem longer 
to me than two centuries ! " 

Meantime, the cauonico gave me no peace on the 



CHIAEINA. 295 

subject of my desire to leave the convent, and sought 
to weaken the poesy of my hopes with all the blows 
which the logic and the cynicism of his profession 
placed at his disposition. He did not fail to complain 
to the abbess of the foolish persecutions to which I had 
been subjected by the nuns, saying to her, in con- 
clusion : — 

"My penitent is a woman of decided character, 
although of few words. You may be certain that she 
is determined to go out of the convent, and will get 
out, too, I believe." 

" San Benedetto will not permit it. "Whoever has 
once assumed his habit, can never lay it off, either 
alive or dead," responded the abbess. 

However anxious I was to leave this detested place, I 
still could not have gone away without grieving to leave 
there a little girl in whom I had become exceedingly 
interested, — a child, in fact, whom I loved as I could 
only have loved the daughter of an only sister. She 
was descended from an honest and well-to-do JSTeapol- 
itau family, and had been distinctly recommended to 
me a year previously to the before-mentioned events. 

Chiarina — such was her name — had been confided 
to the care of an aunt, who had been in the convent 
forty years, and at that time had become excessively 
childish from age. Much afflicted, too, by the horrid 
abuses which her conversa subjected her to, in her 
weak state, the poor old woman had supplicated me to 



296 chiaeina's great beauty. 

take her niece under my own protection and be a mother 
to her. Each educanda had a mm for her mistress. 
Chiarina was then given into my custodj^ and I gladly 
welcomed her. 

Having been what is called a seven months' child, the 
poor little thing had only lived, as it were, by miracle. 
She was now sixteen, but did not look to be more than 
ten. Losing both her parents at an early age, she was 
left with only two brothers. The younger was studying 
in a neighboring city, and the older, on account of his 
business, was almost always away from home. 

Chiarina had the face of a little angel, with regular 
features and an attractive countenance. It was impos- 
sible for persons of her own sex to see her, even in the 
street, without feeling the wish to gratify their senses 
by the contemplation of her enchantingly languid ex- 
pression. Those eyes of hers breathed such an effusion 
of affection as would instantly placate the fiercest anger. 
But with all this, she was deformed in body and very 
feeble. Affected by an aneurism which had dilated the 
cardiac region, she was tormented by an obstinate cough, 
and with palpitation of the heart, which rendered her 
breathing suffocating and her voice husky. 

In the qualities of her mind she was not less beautiful 
than in her face. She was ingenuous, docile, and artless, 
and endowed with an admirable stock of patience. This 
little girl possessed that rare faculty of good judgment, 



HEE ILLNESS. 297 

as to what to do and what to avoid, which I, her senior 
by many years, admired, but could not imitate. 

In the convent, however, besides her declining health, 
the poor girl had two other misfortunes to contend with. 
One was, that of being my pupil, the other, that of 
having for her servant a conversa who was a tyrant to 
her. It was very natural that the hatred which the 
young nun had sworn against the mistress should be re- 
flected upon her pupil ! As to the conversa, she was a 
monster of brutality, — a ferocious wild beast with a hu- 
man face. The child was wealthy, having inherited 
some considerable property, and the conversa was 
hatching the criminal project of not allowing that booty 
to escape from her grasp, but to secure its possession by 
obligating her, by every sort of compulsion, to take the 
vows, and accustoming her to her own fearful despot- 
ism. To this villanous design, however, the malady of 
her little mistress was an obstacle. It was necessary 
for the success of her scheme, therefore, that she should 
conceal this illness as much as possible, in order that 
she might not be excluded from the Capitolo on this ac- 
count. But how could she conceal her cough and her 
distressed respiration? By dint of intimidation and 
scolding, she attempted it. 

If her conversa heard her congh in the corridor she 
would scold her in the most vulgar manner, and has 
even placed her hand over the poor child's mouth to 
suffocate the noise she would be likely to make. When 



298 BEUTALITY OF HEK NUKSE. 

she saw her on the stairs in conversation with some other 
nun, she made her run upstairs immediately, a hundred 
steps without stopping. The poor creature became livid 
and short-breathed to that degree that it seemed some- 
times that she was drawing her last breath. I took 
occasion, sometimes, to scold this couversa for such 
brutality ; but Chiarina told me that after my scoldings 
the conversa always treated her much worse than l)efore ; 
for which reason I was compelled to curb my indigna- 
tion and protests, which would only have tended to 
increase the natural ferocity of the inhuman servant. 

In order to hide the natural deformity of this child, 
the conversa conceived the idea of straightening out her 
body, and for the purpose she placed around her breast, 
corsets filled with strips of iron, instead of whalebone. 
Chiarina came into my room the next morning after- 
wards and threw herself down in an arm-chair, looking 
like a corpse, and with a faint and apparently dying 
voice, said : — 

" Signora Enrichetta, for pity's sake, unlace me ; I feel 
as though I should sulSbcate." 

I took her into a private room and loosened her 
bonds. At evening, however, I was obliged to replace 
everything as I had found it, for fear that the Cerberus 
should discover what had been done. I often said to 
Chiarina : — 

" How long, my dear, are you to be the slave of this 



TREATMENT BY THE NUNS. 299 

bad servant ? If you wish to get rid of her I will help 
you. Leave it to me." 

"No, no ; for mercy's sake, don't do it," she replied, 
in a supplicating tone, clasping her hands and trembling 
at the very idea of the monster's rage. 

This interesting little creature, so overflowing with 
candor, with religion, and with kindness, and so mal- 
treated by nature and harassed by destiny, nourished a 
singular affection for animals, and especially for the 
swallow. Seated at the open window, with her head 
resting upon her hands, she spent a large part of the 
mornino; watchino^ the fli fights of these little creatures, 
and in the contemplation of the joy of their little fami- 
lies, nesting under the roof, and in listening to their 
garrulous preludes while they were feeding their young. 
Stories about the habits and instincts of the swallows 
threw her into ecstasies, and she was never satiated with 
listening to anecdotes about them. Every once in a 
while I told her something new about their reputed 
transmigrations. She, interrupting me, used to say, 
sadly ; — 

"They, at least, can go away in the autumn, to return 
again in the spring to the same nest, while we — " 

In spite, however, of all these requisites, which threw 
such a charm about her, the young nuns treated her not 
less harshly than did her own conversa. Whenever they 
heard her recite the prayers in the coro, a thing which I 
wished to prohibit, but of which she was extravagantly 



300 TREATMENT BY THE NUNS. 

fond, they made fun of her oppressed and difficult 
breathing, or, laughing at her zeal, would exclaim, in 
a loud voice, " What a tiresome thing ! " 

The surgeon of the community, Signor Giampietro, 
had assisted at the accouchement of her mother when 
Chiariua was born, and for that reason, and because of 
his natural sympathy, he felt a strong paternal love for 
her, and frequently recommended her to my care, and 
urged me not to allow her to fatigue herself, nor to 
suffer from any molestation whatever. Because these 
recommendations did not suit her, the conversa told 
Chiarina not to go again into the room where the 
surgeon was. 

I had some time previously re-entered the infirmary. 
One day, while the doctor was sitting in the porteria, 
Chiarina and I came in accidentally. He took her by 
the hand, and, making her sit on his knee, listened to 
what I had to say about the health of the child, whose 
pantings for breath increased fearfully, and the violent 
throbbings of whose heart were now apparent to every 
one. He then made her stand up ; and, in placing one 
hand upon her chest, and the other on her back, to 
note the rhythm of the breathing, his fingers 
touched the iron sticks. 

" What's this you are wearing around your chest ? " 
he inquired. 

And the poor child, blushing, answered, "Nothing." 

I made a sign to the surgeon to proceed with the 



HER BROTHEB TAKES HER FROM THE CONVENT. 301 

examination ; and, on breaking the string of the corslet 
of black flannel, he found it all. 

" Misericordia ! " he cried, furiously, " who has been 
so infamously cruel as to put this iron waistcoat on this 
unfortunate little creature ? " 

" It is my conversa," she replied. 

" Call that wretch to me immediately," he said. 

The child became pallid, and trembled with fright, 
and besought me to appease him ; and he, seeing her 
thus frightened, restrained himself, and then turning 
to the portress and the other nuns, who were present, 
said : — 

" Murders are not all committed with the dagger, nor 
with poison. To put such an infamous thing as this 
around the body of this poor girl is only another mode 
of killing her. Compressing her heart in this way will 
hurry her to her grave." 

Words thrown to the winds. Chiarina continued 
to wear the iron jacket. Neither the surgeon's ad- 
monitions nor my entreaties were heeded. Her 
brother was in the Abruzzi. I wrote him a letter, in 
which I told him distinctly that the retention of his 
sister for a much longer time in the convent would be 
equivalent to abandoning her to premature death. He 
came at once to Naples, and told Chiarina to prepare 
to go away with him. She grieved exceedingly to go, 
although she was convinced, in her own mind, that I 
would not remain long in the convent ; for she thought 
26 



302 HER RE-ENTRANCE. 

that my petition to the Holy Father could not possibly 
be denied. 

She left the convent in charge of her brother ; and 
the young nuns, in token of their thankfulness, lighted 
the lamp before the shrine of the Holy Virgin. 

She was out of the convent ; but a terrible destiny 
still pursued this poor little girl. It was now winter. 
The cold in the Abruzzi, where her brother now lived, 
was seriously prejudicial to the health of Chiarina; 
and, as time and reparation partially obliterated the rec- 
ollection of her past sufferings in the convent, she 
thought that her health was even better there than in 
travelling with her brother. 

Some time subsequently she returned to Naples, and 
demanded to be received again as an educanda. 
What an idea ! 

I strove to persuade her against this course, telling 
her that she was not manifesting her usual prudence, 
and reminded her of her past sufferings ; and counselled 
her to select rather a ritiro^ where she might take a 
servant, and live tranquilly and independcDtly. She 
replied : — 

"My dear friend, my wish is to remain near to you. 
I re-enter the convent solely on your account." 

" But I expect to leave San Gregorio soon." 

" Several months have already passed since you ex- 
pected to receive permission, and it has not yet come. 
Who knows if it ever will? " 



SUDDEN DEATH. 303 

When the Capitolo was convened to vote on the 
question of her re-entrance, I determined to keep my 
own conscience void of offence. In the act of depositing 
my vote, I raised my hand, so that all should see that 
I placed a black ball in the urn. She was re-admitted 
only by the votes of the older nuns ; the younger ones 
all voted against it. 

She returned; but very soon repented not having 
followed my advice. Her cough, always worse during 
the night, disturbed the sleep of the conversa ; and, in 
order to avoid the reproaches and imprecations which 
she was compelled to" submit to on that account, the 
poor little sick creature used to cover her head with 
the bedclothes, and lie there motionless, and like one 
buried. 

One morning her conversa went to wake her. She 
seemed to be sound asleep. She called her by her 
name, turned her over, and called her again. Still no 
answer. She shook her; but she did not move. She 
then turned down the bedclothes, — she was dead ! 

Sixteen times since have the swallows come back; 
but the angelic spirit of Chiarina will never more 
return to this vale of tears. 



11 



CHAPTEE XVII. 

CARDINAL RIAEIO. 

The " head " of the church in Naples — His ignorance and conceit— The " spouses 
of Christ " are infatuated with him — He presents the nuns with a huge stur- 
geon, thinking it good to eat— He visits the convent and inquires for me — 
Demands my reasons for desiring to leave the convent, and declares his oppo- 
sition — I abandon myself to despair — He repeats his visit, and reasons with 
me to no purpose — He goes to Rome — I make another appeal to the Holy 
Father, which faUs — The cardinal returns from Rome, bringing me a rosary 
which has been blessed by the pope, and demands some keepsake from me, in 
return, of my own working — He is refused — Another time he asks for some 
confetti of my own manufacture — He is again refused— BIy letter to the pope 
falls into the hands of the cardinal, who violates the seal of the confessional. 

Cardinal Eiario Sforza was exalted to the archi- 
episcopal chair of Naples six months after the death of 
Caracciolo, his predecessor, and after the vicar ship of 
Savarese. Very young for such a post, with only a 
limited education, void alike of experience and of pru- 
dence, and of untrustworthy morals, he obtained this 
place only by the intervention of his uncle, who, in this 
age of gold, disposed of his talents and his influence at 
the command of Gregory XVI. 

In order to give him a smattering of the obligations 
and of the duties of his office, of which he was totally 
ignorant, he had been for six mouths qualifying himself 
in the small see of Aversa. Pope Gregory died shortly 
after having conferred this inestimable boon on the cap- 

304 



CAEDINAL EIAEIO. 305 

ital of Ferdinand II. (for which the monarch cordially 
thanked him) , and Mastai Feretti succeeded him in the 
holy see as "Pio Nino." 

In the early days of his pontificate everybody knows 
that Pius IX., by his liberal professions and acts, gained 
a very favorable position in the good opinion of the 
world at large. He was not only liberal in fact, but, 
following the example of Aristides the Just, he was 
anxious to be known to the world as such. The little 
tub that he threw overboard to the whale kindled great 
hope in the hearts of the liberal party all over Italy, 
and already this afflicted people opened their hearts to 
legitimate aspirations ; already a council was spoken of 
to decree the dissolution of the monastic vows, which 
had been, three centuries before, defined by the Council 
of Trent. 

It was during this excitement that my demand for 
permission to leave the convent was forwarded to 
Eome. 

Cardinal Eiario, anxious in the commencement of his 
administration to manifest his zeal as a prelate, had 
repeatedly visited our convent. One day, after having 
been a long time entertained by the abbess and another 
nun, an exquisite dissembler, who might properly be 
called the real superiora, because the other could do 
nothing without consulting her, the entire community 
was convoked, purposely to welcome him. I came for- 
ward with the rest, avoiding the most prominent places 
26* 



306 HIS IGNORANCE AND CONCEIT. 

in favor of those who esteemed it a greater honor than I 
did to be presented to him. 

I had then an opportunity to observe that he was de- 
ficient in the most important qualification for his posi- 
tion, — that of education. It was evident that the time 
spent at the scopone in Eome had been employed in 
some other manner than in study ; he had only learned 
there la pasquinate; but, if he thought to imitate the 
Romans in sarcasm, he had neither the subtlety nor the 
promptness which gives to the itching the advantage of 
opportunity ; for a mauvais plaisant, between Marforio 
and Pulcinella, but little is necessary. 

In afiecting an illy prepared gravity, he took occa- 
sion, sometimes, to perpetrate either an allocution or a 
warning ; and it was difficult to discover, from his diffuse 
remarks, what conclusion he was aiming at. His ideas 
were awkwardly united, his terms and phrases out of 
place, and his construction obscure and confused. Al- 
though inexperienced in speaking, and still more so in 
writing his own language, he had an itching vanity to 
be thought a Latin scholar ; on w^hich account he would 
often mix Latin proverbs and texts of Scripture con- 
fusedly together in his remarks. I am really afraid, 
however, that of his Limen Gram7naticum, learnt in the 
Eternal City, he had retained but very little in his mind ; 
only sufficient, perhaps, to conjugate the present and 
future tenses of the verb amare. That was, at any 



mFATUATION Or THE NtTNS. 307 

rate, as I afterwards learned, the opinion of the people 
of Rome. 

Riario was then, in his own conceit, a great man. 
There is no disputing about taste. It is indubitable, 
however, that each one of his visits electrified the young 
Benedettine. Immediately after leaving him in the par- 
latorio, they might be found assembled in little groups, 
where each one endeavored to surpass the other in pan- 
egyrics on the endowments, spiritual and natural, of 
His Eminence. 

Some said, " How handsome he is ! " " What a noble 
deportment ! " " What a fascinating look ! " " What a 
beautiful hand!" Others, "How learned and well in- 
structed he is ! " " From his mouth comes only honey ! " 
My comment to myself was, "He has hardly learned 
yet to walk alone ! " But little else was done or 
thought of in the convent, for many days and nights, 
but to feast on the odor of his words. Those, then, 
to whom these odorous nosegays had been presented 
were covered with blushes ; their bosoms palpitated 
with excitement, and they became perfectly distracted 
by the unusual emotion. 

I had always avoided him as much as I could, and 
had never spoken to him. In fact, I had conceived that 
insuperable repugnance to him which is sometimes felt 
at first sight, and which we are often unable to justify. 
I cannot explain why, but from the first he seemed to 
me a Dandino, travestied into an ecclesiastic prince ! 



308 RIARIO'S PRESENTS. 

To show his gallantry, he sent a present to the com- 
munity, once upon a time, of a basket of molluscs. 
The nuns were so overjoyed at the present that they 
gave a piastre to the servant who brought it, and harped 
upon and magnified the gracefulness of the so-called 
nuovo su;periore. 

A few days subsequently another present arrived. A 
facchino, who was conveyed by a servant of the cardi- 
nal, brought in a fish of enormous size, decked out with 
orange leaves. In presenting this huge mass of animal 
matter, the servant delivered, in the name of His Emi- 
nence, an interminable litany of compliments, while the 
facchino was standing and perspiring freely under the 
weight of the fish. Another piastre was given to the 
servant, and two carlini (a carlino is equal to eight 
cents) to the facchino. 

The nuns crowded into the porteria, rejoicing over 
their present, and those of them who appropriated the 
compliment to themselves vied with each other in pro- 
posing in favor of the liveried servant something more 
sumptuous than an ordinary present.* 

At this juncture the book-keeper (house-steward) 
arrived. 

"Do you know," one said, "Don Giuseppe, that the 
cardinal has sent in another present, more magnificent 
than the first? You must prepare yourself to write 

* The South-Italians are much given to making presents to each other. These 
are generally sent by the hands of one of the servants of the family, who always 
expects to receive a gratuity, if it is only a few soldi. 



KIAEIO*S PRESENTS. 309 

a second letter of thanks, in the name of the com- 
munity." 

" Indeed ! " he exclaimed ; " what has he sent ? " 

"A fish ; but such a fish ! there will be enough even 
for the converse ! " 

" Let me see it." 

The converse drew the huge sturgeon to the door. 
The steward looked at it through his glass from head to 
tail, made them turn it over and over again, and, after 
having ruminated on everything which he knew on the 
subject of ichthyology, said : — 

"Do you know, signora abbess, and you other rever- 
ends, that this seems to me to be a fish brought from the 
Museum of Natural History ? " 

" A fish from the Museum ! " repeated more than a 
hundred voices in chorus ; " the present is much more 
splendid than we had imagined ! " 

" Well, well ; but this is a good joke ! The fish is not 
fit to be eaten ! " 

" But the same servant brought it who brought the 
other present," added the nuns. 

" I have the honor to tell you that this fish is a mon- 
strosity." 

"Don Giuseppe mio, you are demented ! " 

" Very well ; I will call in a fisherman to look at it." 

While all the sisters stood around, exclaiming, 
" Gesu I Gesu ! " the fisherman arrived from a neighbor- 



310 KIARIO VISITS ME AT THE CONVENT. 

ing market, and, looking at the famous present, 
exclaimed : — 

" It is a sea-calf; throw it away ! " 

"A sea-calf!" said Don Giuseppe. "I said well, 
then, when I remarked that it was a monster from the 
Museum ! " 

Imagine the rage of the nuns, especially of those who 
had appropriated the compliment ! The fact that the 
nuns understood the trick came to the ears of the cardi- 
nal, who discovered, at length, that gallantries cost 
more in Naples than in Rome. However this may be, 
it was said that he received, the same day, a letter of 
thanks from the community of San Gregorio, and that 
he thenceforth abstained from giving any further proofs 
of his partiality for these sisters. 

Coming another time to San Gregorio, he was enter- 
tained a long time by the superiora and her nun-shadow, 
her ;pedissequa. The other nuns were waiting, mean- 
while, in a state of the utmost trepidation, expecting 
every moment to be called into his presence, according 
to the usual custom. 

Instead of which, the bell was rung for me. 

I descended to the porteria, and found the abbess, 
who had just come from the parlatorio. 

" The cardinal desires to speak to you," she said. 

My heart jumped to my mouth ; my thoughts recurred 
immediately to my demand for permission to leave the 



INTERVIEW WITH KIARIO. 311 

convent, which had been forwarded to Rome two 
months before. 

I went immediately to the parlatorio. The cardinal 
was seated in an easy-chair. At first sight, he seemed 
to me to be playing the exquisite, while a light perfume 
of cologne-water from his person difiused itself through 
the room. 

I kneeled before him as the use, or, to say better, the 
abuse, demanded. He raised his hand and blessed me, 
and, looking at me a long time in silence, he said : — 

" You have sent a petition to the Holy See for per- 
mission to leave the cloister?" in a mawkish and 
mellifluous tone of voice. 

"Yes, your Eminence," I replied, trembling not less 
from fear than from hope. 

" And for what motive ? " 

"On account of my health." 

He smiled ironically, and, turning and looking at me 
attentively, added : — 

"I don't think you look sick." 

"That I am ill, God knows." 

" From what sort of illness do you suffer ? " 

" One that proceeds from my nerves " — 

" Who does not suffer fi-om this cause ? " 

— "And convulsions," I added. 

"All women suffer from the same cause. Hysterics, 
hysterics, and nothing else. The disease is more com- 



312 HIS OPPOSITION TO JIY LEAVING. 

mon among the women of the world than it is in the 
convent." 

After a brief pause, I remarked that my petition had 
been accompanied by a certificate from the physician. 

"I have little faith in physicians. In some, more, — 
in others, less ; they are all impostors." 

"But mine was sworn." 

"All are mibelievers, — all perjure themselves." 

I remained silent, and, after a brief pause, he con- 
tinued : — 

" You must understand that all the petitions which are 
sent to Kome from my diocese are by the Holy Father 
remanded to me. Your petition took the usual course, 
to the end that I might verify the statements and accord 
my permission. Now, in order that you may not in- 
dulge in any vain hopes, I must tell you that my vote 
is against it : therefore you will do well to abandon all 
hope of ever leaving the convent. 

I was thunderstruck. He was surprised to see me so 
much distressed, and invited me to be seated. Then, 
softening the tone of his voice, which had been tuned 
to a harsh key in his last remarks, he added : — 

"I have just spoken with the superiora, and she as- 
sures me that the motive for your petition is not truly 
that of health, but rather of caprice." 

I understood now the part the cardinal had played in 
this affair, and the perception of it brought me to 




I ABANDON MYSELF TO DESPAIR. 313 

myself. The blood rushed to my face, and I turned to 
him with a look of the most intense scorn. 

"Your Eminence," I said, forcing myself to restrain 
the agitation of my nerves ; " your Eminence ought to 
be incapable of descending to such low and ignominious 
intrigues." 

" Do not be alarmed," he replied, interrupting me ; 
"to this nonsense I attach no importance, being con- 
vinced that nothing improper has ever passed between 
you and him. Could I suppose that a noble — I mean 
a nun, as you are, would descend to the level of a sim- 
ple acolyte? Still, your wish to leave the cloister is 
absurd, and you. must abandon it." 

Coldly and fearlessly I remarked to him that I could 
not believe that God, the Holy Father, and His Emi- 
nence, had all of one accord determined upon my death, 
by prolonging my stay in the convent. But he, cutting 
me short, passed to other subjects of foreign, futile, and 
idle gossip, and after some time he rose suddenly, and 
said : — 

" I shall return often to visit you ; let me see you al- 
ways in good spirits, and do not hide yourself as you 
have done heretofore, and let me also have the pleasure 
of learning that you have driven from your heart all 
intention of returning to the world." 

I returned to my cell and abandoned myself to des- 
peration, which was further exasperated by overhearing 
the giggling of the nuns. I fled from them all. Having 

27 



314 ANOTHER APPEAL TO THE HOLY FATHER. 

fulfilled my duties in the coro, and in the infirmary as 
well, I retired to my chamber by the shortest path, 
where I spent my time either in reading, Avorking, or in 
meditation ; and there, more from the need of some dis- 
traction than anything else, I began to scribble these 
memoirs. Maria Giuseppa, my good con versa, and the 
only companion of my solitude, would not move from 
my side except from the most urgent necessity, and, 
being less experienced than myself in priestly simula- 
tion, she conceived, in order to comfort me, the most 
foolish and chimerical hopes, to which I often responded 
with that Dantesca apostrophe of Astigiano : — 

" . . . . Stirpe maluata, e cruda, 
Che degli altrui perigli, all' ombra, ride ! " * 

My mother, too, was inconsolable, having ascertained 
that this favor which I had asked had been conceded to 
other nuns less ill than I. The canonico attempted in 
vain to moderate my anger; it was not possible. I 
abandoned myself to the most ungovernable feelings of 
desolation. 

I now made a new and more vigorous application and 
forwarded it to Rome. Consistent, meanwhile, with his 
promise, Riario came more frequently than usual to the 
convent. Every time the bell sounded to call the com- 
munity together in the parlatorio, I experienced a chill. 

* • . . low-born, vile and cruel race, who at others' dangers, at spectree, 
laughs! 



VISITS OF RIARIO. 315 

To avoid that disgusting meeting I would have given, I 
know not what ; but how was I to do it ? As soon as he 
arrived, his first question was : — 

"And your Caracciolo, where is she?" 

Though trembling with rage, I was obliged to go 
before him and to listen to his inquiries, delivered in a 
most mellifluous tone of voice, about the state of my 
health, and if I were tranquil, in mind, etc., etc. ; all of 
which seemed to me like the compliments of the execu- 
tioner to one about to be hanged. 

"Poor child, she is so good ! She is never seen nor 
heard ! " answered the hypocritical abbess, accustomed 
always to praise every one while in her presence. 

" Brava ! " added the eminent visitor. " So all goes 
on well ? " 

One day the superiora told me to advance to the front 
rank of those who were before the cardinal. Such studied 
preference made the nuns indignant. They muttered 
something against the abbess, and I overheard them 
say : — 

" How ridiculous ! He is always talking of the Carac- 
ciolo." 

"Emiuenza," said the superiora one day to the cardinal, 
in my presence, "I must denounce this signors, Qnona- 
chella, who is every day becoming more and more 
misanthropic. She flies from all society and passes the 
greater part of her time shut up in her own cell, and 



316 THE CAEDIXAL .REASONS -WITH ME. 

even in the hours of recreation is not willing to unite 
with the other nuns." 

"Leave her a moment alone with me," said he, in a 
tone of patriarchal authority. 

The nuns went out much irritated, and I seated my- 
self at some distance from him, curious to see how His 
Eminence would commence. 

He composed himself tp an affable manner to inspire 
me with confidence, and, wiping the perspiration from 
his face with a linen-cambric pocket-handkerchief, he 
inquired : — 

" What is your motive for remaining always alone and 
musing?" 

"Is that a crime, also? After I have performed all 
my duties and obeyed the precepts, it seems to me that 
I might have my time to myself, and that others need 
not trouble themselves about my habits." 

" Well, I should like to be able to look through the 
walls of your room to discover what it is with which you 
occupy so many hours of your time. It must be that 
your confessor does not penetrate into all your secrets." 

"I read, scribble, and work; and, perhaps, even this 
is an infraction of the rules ! " 

" Certainly it is not permitted to you to read or to 
write, unless in works of devotion ; and, if you please, 
what are you reading and writing ? " 

" I seek, in reading some instructive book, a comfort 
to the oppression which is brutifyiug me here ; and I am 



THE CAEDINAL EEASONS WITH ME. 317 

sketching the recollections of my captivity, to leave a 
record of it behind me." 

" Oppression — memories — captivity. This is sur- 
prising. Where in the deuce have you derived these 
phrases of the carbonaro ? Do you not know that I ought 
to punish you severely for these foolish fontasies ? " 

" Can you do even this? I need, then, only the chain 
at my ankles, — can you not order it put on ? " 

"The interest I take in you does not permit it. I 
should like, however, to make you lay down that cursed, 
rabid wish to recover your liberty. On this, I am abso- 
lute, implacable, inexorable. I will never consent to 
it." 

" You attempt in vain to deprive me of every ray of 
hope. I have written again to the Holy See." 

" I know it ; I know it ; and I shall write against you, 
always denying you. Will you confide to me, by the 
way, where it is you wish to go, if you should get per- 
mission to leave the convent ? " 

" To the home of my mother. Although I have no 
longer any need of tutelage, I believe no other woman 
to be so well qualified to take charge of the daughter as 
her mother." 

In pronouncing these words, my eyes were swollen 
with tears, and my mind was filled with memories of 
my father. 

The cardinal indulged in a Mephistophelian laugh, and 
said : — 

27* 



318 THE CARDINAL GOES TO ROME. 

" A sham ! you waut to get out rather to dance ; in 
the home of your mother they have balls ; but take good 
care what you do, or the police may look in upon you." 

My patience was finally exhausted. Seizing the bor- 
der of the scapulary, I said : — 

"With this dress, abhorred by everybody, I should 
be ashamed to be seen, and still more to take part in a 
dance. I demand my liberty only to reacquire a supreme 
benefit, the enjoyment of which I renounced because of 
my inexperience, of my weakness, and of the force of 
an adverse destiny." 

"I cannot permit it," the cardinal repeated frequently, 
and every time with increasing severity. " Now," he 
added, "I am going to Rome myself; when I return, I 
will see you again." 

" And I, for my part, shall never cease to hope for 
my redemption. A pleasant journey." 

And when he had turned his back, I could not help 
adding : — 

" Go to perdition ! " 

My dejection now increased daily, and my brain be- 
gan to be really affected by it. I confronted my moral 
sufferings with those of the two insane converse and 
began to fear I was becoming crazy myself. 

The hopes I had reposed in the liberal promises of 
Pius IX. were meanwhile vanishing. He at first pro- 
posed to dissolve the vows ; then spoke of a five-yearly 
renewal of them ; then it was given out that such a re- 



EFFORTS TO LEAVE THE CONVENT. 319 

newal of them, would be restricted to such nuns only as 
had made the profession after the Breve, and at last he 
ceased to speak any further about it. In the mind 
of Pius IX. , monastical emancipation and love of country 
had submitted to the same fate. 

" E quando Roma non volto mantello ! " * 

My first intention, as I have already said, was to go 
out only for six months ; reserving to myself the right 
to renew the permission at the end of this time, and to 
pass from this into some other cloister, in case a further 
prolongation of time was denied to me. The capricious 
repulse I had met with — having been refused that which 
was every day conceded to those nuns who fell ill in 
most of the convents of Naples, especially in the sum- 
mer season — stung me to the quick. It was now evi- 
dently a personal affair, and rather than succumb, I 
would have renounced existence itself. 

From that moment I bade adieu to every sort of pal- 
liative, or half-way measure, and looked directly and 
only to a dissolution of my vows. I collected such in- 
formation as I could on the subject, read more books 
and consulted with a learned canonico, from whom I 
learned that I must send in my petition, even before the 
five years of the profession had expired, and that it 
would be necessary, also, to prove that I was made a 
nun against my own will ; and finally, that the cause 
must first be heard at the Curia of Naples, and after- 

* And when did Kome not change her cloak ? 



320 EFFORTS TO LEAVE THE COXVENT. 

wards at Rome ; all of which would occupy much time, 
require much money, and offered but slight hopes of 
success. 

This information disconcerted me. The fifth year of 
my profession was about to expire ; and then, the Curia 
of Naples, would it not have at its head the cardinal 
archbishop, who was doggedly opposed to my claim? 
could he not exhaust the patience of a nun who was 
without a protector? — and, further, where could I pro- 
cure the money necessary to retain an advocate to go 
personally to Rome and give the inevitable hoccone to 
the reverend magnates of that capital ? The prospect 
terrified me. Nevertheless, determined not to fail for 
want of an effort, I resolved to send my petition to the 
Curia of Naples ; and this I did, exposing all the circum- 
stances by which violence had been done to my wishes, 
from the point when I first entered the convent until the 
day of taking the vows. 

What was the fate of this effort ? Was it intercepted 
at the Curia of Naples, which, either never allowed it to 
see the light or let it fall into the claws of the cardi- 
nal, who quietly pocketed it? I was never able to pene- 
trate the mystery. Certain it is, however, that my peti- 
tion disappeared, leaving no trace by which it could be 
followed. 

Again I found myself in a strait, not knowing which 
way to turn. I thought of making a direct appeal to 
the Holy Father ; open my mind to him frankly, and 



THE CARDINAL RETURNS FROM ROME. 321 

endeavor to move him with compassion for my condition. 
Pius IX. was then thought to be a man of great capacity, 
as well as a man of the world. In the statement of 
my case, which I prepared expressly for him, I said 
that I believed it proper not to confine myself to an ac- 
count of my health, which "was declining every day, but 
to notify him also of other matters not less relevant ; 
that is to say, that from my youth up, I had always had 
a strong desire for matrimony, and that I should marry 
if he would condescend to release me from the obliga- 
tions I had assumed, and which, in spite of myself, pro- 
pelled thereto by the currents of disastrous and fatal 
circumstances, I had been obliged to contract. In order 
to render inviolable the secrets of this petition, I placed 
at the head of it, confiteor, which, as is well known, 
always precedes the auricular confession. 

The cardinal, in the mean time, had returned from 
Eome. Coming to the convent one day, he inquired for 
me. He began his colloquy by making me a present of 
a rosary which had been blessed by the Pope, and which 
he had brought from the Holy City ; and demanded in 
exchange for it some piece of needlework, the work of 
my own hands ! This present seemed to me a bad au- 
gury. I desired my liberty rather than the ambiguities 
of such hypocritical trifles, and I told His Eminence 
that I did not know how to work anything with the 
needle suitable for him. 

" That is not true," said he in an eflTeminate manner ; 



322 HE DEJIANDS A KEEPSAKE. ; 

" I am not ignorant of your skill. Apply yourself to 
something; to some elegant piece of embroidery, for 
example ; it will serve you for diversion." 

The abbess now entered, and, on hearing of my refusal 
from the cardinal, she twisted her face into an expression 
of scorn and said, in an imperious tone, to the car- 
dinal : — 

" The work shall be executed without fail. I will my- 
self see that she begins and finishes it." 

For many days subsequently she annoyed me, reiter- 
ating her demands to know if I had already begun it, 
and what it could be, etc., etc. Irritated, finally, by 
these incessant molestations, I said to her : — 

"Do you impose it upon me for discipline?" 

" Oh, shame ! I trust you will do it willingly." 

"Then, with all due submission, you may do it your- 
self. I detest that man as much as a prisoner of state 
can detest the author of his imprisonment. Is it not he 
who keeps me here, by force, in this state of violence?" 

"He does it only, as he believes, for your own good." 

" For my good ! I am immensely obliged to him. 
Would to God that he might hate me, instead of show- 
ing me such baleful friendship ! " 

" You ought to pass your time more pleasantly here 
now, certainly, for those foolish young nuns no longer 
annoy you." 

" I do not perceive it," I replied ; " if they are any 
less annoying, it is only because they fear that if I should 



SOME DOLCI. 323 

happen to leave the cloister, I might pay them off as 
they deserve." 

The sLiperiora bit her lip. I discovered subsequently 
that the subject of my cougedo, considered in the light 
of a political sin, had occupied the attention of the au- 
thorities more than I had imagined, and that between 
the cardinal, the abbess, and my confessor there reigned 
the most perfect intelligence in regard to it. 

Another time the cardinal having learned that from 
the infermeria I had been transferred to the paneUiera, 
came to offer me his congratulations ( ! ) , and to demand 
of me some dolci, made by my own hands. Again he 
was refused. He visited the convent another time on 
business for the community. He first despatched the 
business which brought him there and then asked some of 
the nuns to show him to my cell, which he carefully ex- 
plored in every part ; then going out upon the terrace 
and looking upon Vesuvius, the adjacent hills, and the 
other beautiful scenery which may be seen from there, he 
exclaimed : — 

" What a beautiful prospect there is from your room ! 
What an immense horizon ! This scene relieves the 
heart and edifies the spirit-; and yet you desire to 
leave it ! " 

"This prospect," I replied, "only renders more at- 
tractive still, to the prisoner, the benefits of freedom." 

" But you are free enough ; who can tell but that one 
dose more of liberty might be fatal to you ? " 



321 MY LETTEIl TO THE POPE. 

" With similar words were the afflicted people of 
Agrigentum comforted," I replied, accompanyiug the 
irony with a smile. 

He heard me but was silent, and departed. This 
was about the time that Apuzzo, de' Pietrocola, and Del 
Carretto were in the height of their power in Naples ; 
the time when, in the rage for sophism, the idea was 
raised to the level of an axiom, that the people of the 
Two Sicilies, very happy in the state of lamb-like igno- 
rance in which they lived, ought not to run the risk of 
being defrauded by seeking to extend the sum of their 
education beyond their a b c's. 

To what part of the world did the fame of the igno- 
minious catechism of Signor Apuzzo not arrive ? Could 
clerical heathenism and Bourbonical despotism have left 
behind them any monument more infamous than this ? 

It was about six weeks after I had sent my last peti- 
tion to the Holy Father, that I met my confessor one 
day, looking very sad and in a very bad humor. He 
had just come from the palace of the archbishop. 

Who would have believed it ? The letter which I had 
hoped to keep a secret even from the canonico himself, 
had been remitted from Rome to the Cardinal Arch- 
bishop ! 

And the secrets of the communication ? Violated ! 

And the seal of the confession ? Broken ! 

His Eminence desired to know from the canonico how, 



]MY LETTER TO THE POPE. 325 

when, and why he should have permitted that appeal 
to be sent to the Holy Father ; and demanded to know, 
besides, if some turbulent passion had not suggested 
such an expedient to me. 

The canonico asserted that he knew nothing of it ; at 
least so he told me. It is true that in the confession I 
had made it a rule not to reveal anything to him except 
the mere infractions of the discipline. 

The cardinal was exceedingly angry at this new at- 
tempt, which he was pleased to call my " irrefrenable 
cospirazione" and did not see me again for a long time. 
In the mean time, this petition falling into his hands 
severed the last hope I had of seeing an early termina- 
tion to my days of purgatory. 

Nevertheless, in place of these illusions which, by de- 
grees, vanished as soon as they were born, there was 
aroused in me a different and more distinct ray of salva- 
tion. Raising itself from the sepulchre where it had 
been buried already for twenty-seven years, the genius 
of Italian liberty shook from its mane the dust of the 
tomb, and began to reassume its old life with greater 
strength than ever. 



CHAPTEE XVm. 

1848. 

Italy in 1848— My sympathy with the revohitionary movement— My conversa re- 
solves to follow me — Excitement in Naples — Write to the pope again for 
permission to live out of the convent — Renewed opposition of the cardinal — 
The celebrated 15th of May — Barricades thrown up in the streets of Naples — 
The palazzo G ravina burned — The city declared in a state of siege — The pope 
finally grants my prayer in part — Consents that I leave the convent and live 
in a conservatorio — Difficulty in getting admission to one — Succeed finally, 
and leave San Gregorio for the Conservatorio di Costantinopoli. 

SmcE the latter part of the year 1847, the horizon of 
Italy had assumed a menacing aspect, which presaged 
an imminent and inevitable crisis. 

The people of our peninsula were absorbed in an at- 
titude of expectation but little different from that of 
those who profess to be waiting for the INIilleuuiam. 
Every day seemed a century ; and in the evening came 
disappointment ; but every new sun that rose warmed 
into life the most buoyant hopes. Although I lived 
segregated from the world, I was kept informed of all 
by my relatives, and the least symptom of change, the 
least popular movement, made my heart leap for joy. 

The convents of Naples have been for all time, and 
still continue to be, the most rabid hot-beds of despot- 
ism. As well from the insinuations of their superiors 

326 



ITALY IN 1848. 327 

as from spontaneous impulse, the nuns of San Gregorio 
are accustomed to pray, first, for the king, then, among 
other things, they ask God to exterminate the malvagi, 
that is to say, the liberals. With what a profound 
sense of reproach I was compelled to comply with this 
custom ! Against such prayers my spirit protested with 
the most energetic disdain, and in spirit I besought the 
Almighty for the fall of tyranny, and for the triumph 
of the nation to which I gloried in belonging. 

The change in my feelings appeared in my face, and 
was not unnoticed by the sisters ; and they, with one 
accord, accused me of belonging to secret societies, of 
being a heretic, a sectarian, and I know not what be- 
sides ; so that I found myself on the brink of a preci- 
pice. I, however, paid no attention to their lamenta- 
tions, and deplored the gross ignorance in which they 
lived. Even from the day in which Ferdinand II. swore 
to support the constitution, and the liberty of the press 
was proclaimed, I freely bought the journals of the 
opposition, and read them, in a loud voice, under the 
dome of the convent for so many centuries deaf to 
the accents of liberty. 

In the clamorous awakening of the people, in the 
tremendous roaring of the revolution, in the noisfe at 
the barricade, in the shaking of the thrones, — which so 
strongly contracted with the sepulchral silence of my 
prison, — I experienced a satisfaction, a strange comfort, 
which delighted me. "Howl should be gratified," I 



328 SYMPATHY WITH THE REVOLUTION. 

said to myself, " if the faint-hearted and misanthropic 
echo of these places shonld be astounded now by the 
sound of a military trumpet ! "What if it should ad- 
vance even to the saloons of the Capitolo ! " 

Meantime, my enthusiasm, feeding itself daily from 
the columns of the journals, increased by degrees, until 
I fancied I could even see the priests trembling with 
fanaticism and madness. Tlie faces of these necroman- 
cers served me for telegraphs. Did a yellow jaundice 
diffuse itself over their features, I was sure things were 
progressing satisfactorily, — that the good ship was 
under good headway ! If they raised their humiliated 
faces to simper, and to explode imprecations against the 
constitution, which they called j^^'ostitution, I was cer- 
tain the wind had shifted, and that it was now dead 
ahead ! 

By degrees a conspiracy was formed in the convent, 
to mortify my liberalism, and to transpierce my convic- 
tions. It was about the time that the Neapolitan troops, 
either from love or from force, blessed by tlie local 
authority, were departing for Lombard}' in haste, in 
order to assist at the final expulsion of the Austrians. 
What a storm of sarcasms, of poisonous jokes, and of 
irony assailed me then in the refectory all the time 
we were at table ! I often left the table, after the soup, 
and returned to my own room, strongly tempted to 
apply the torch to the convent, and thus consign to 



SYMPATHY OF MY CONVEESA. 329 

ashes those wasps and hornets, and with them myself 
also. 

It was just after one of these scenes, that I one day, 
while lying on my bed, with my mind bent on resistance, 
called my faithful conversa, and, taking her by the 
hand, asked her : — 

"You say, Maria Giuseppa, that you will never be 
separated from me. Are you firmly resolved on this?" 

" Ah, signora, do not doubt it ! " 

"If you love me so much, then, will you not also love 
all those who are my friends, and hate all those who are 
my enemies ? " 

" This you already know, by observation." 

" Now, if I tell you that outside these walls I have 
many friends, and that they are as numerous as are the 
inhabitants of our beautiful country, who sigh for lib- 
erty and equality, how would you feel towards them?" 

"I should love them for certain, both because you 
love them, and because they seek liberty and equality." 

"Brava, Giuseppa!" I replied, and giving free vent 
to the sentiments which agitated my breast, I continued : 
" If, throwing aside these badges of egotism and inertia, 
and putting on those of the vivandiere of a regiment, I 
should say .to you, 'Follow me, Giuseppa, to Lombardy, 
or to Venetia, or wherever strong blows are being struck 
for liberty, — where we are called, also, by our duty to 
our country, as mothers, or sisters, or citizens, — rather 
than continue in the service of these enemies of every 
28* 



330 EXCITEMENT IN NAPLES. 

good;' vvoulcl you not prefer, do you think, to assist 
in the infirmary, or the apothecaries' shop, or the 
bakery of the camp, or anywhere else where your 
services could aid those who go to immolate themselves 
for the benefit of all ? " 

" I would follow you with all my heart. I would 
follow you instantly," she answered, much excited, and 
drying, with her apron, the tears which bathed her 
cheeks. 

I drew her to me, held her to my bosom, and 
kissed her. In this embrace, in this efiusion of the 
afiections, in this kiss of concord, the daughter of the 
plebeian and the daughter of the signore formed but a 
single person. 

One day there happened in the public streets one of 
those unreasonable alarms, which, in times of political 
convulsions, frequently disturb the city of Naples. I, 
with two other nuns, curious to know the reason why 
the doors and the windows in the neighborhood were 
being shut so suddenly, ran hurriedly up into the 
campanile, from th6 top of which we could see all the 
neighboring quartien. 

There was a state of great excitement. Everybody 
was running hurriedly. Three young men only were- 
going aloDg the streets at their ease. Looking at us 
through the grating, one of them cried out, smiling as 
he did so : — 



EXCITEMENT IN NAPLES. 331 

"CoTirage, little nuns! In a short time your im- 
prisonment will be at an end ! " 

My satisfaction showed itself in my face. One of 
the nuns perceiving it, said : — 

" You laugh. It is something rather to cry for."' 

" Cry, you who lose," I replied. "I, who gain, will 
laugh." 

The abbess hearing of the occurrence, ordered the 
access to the campanile to be locked. But there were 
other accessible loop-holes in the convent, from which 
I could privately explore what was going on in the 
world outside ; and I soon learned that the constitution 
which the king had accorded did not promise any re- 
form in the matter of religion. He, faithless, and a 
dotard, obstinate, and a hypocrite, had not conceded 
liberty of culture, nor anything else from which I 
could hope to see these infamous monastic establish- 
ments, with which our country is both deluged and 
disgraced, suppressed. 

The cry of " Viva Pio Nono ! " in the streets was 
always an anchor of hope to me ; and I often heard it. 
A pope who had at first declared himself, in the face 
of the world, the friend of liberty, could he continue 
to command the admiration of the Christian world 
without conceding some reform in ecclesiastical dis- 
cipline, corresponding to the requirements of the time, 
and such as ought to suggest itself to his own con- 
victions ? 



332 ANOTHER LETTER TO THE POPE. 

Encouraged by these reflections, I began another 
petition, to be consigned into the hands of the Holy 
Father himself. Throwing aside now the supplicating 
tone, I made use of a robust style, which better com- 
ported with the sj^irit of the age. 

I said, ingenuously, that the monastic life was only 
a relic of oriental barbarism, and the monastery none 
other than a prison for those who had not entered 
it willingly. Not having committed any crime myself, 
either against God or man, I did not know by what 
inhuman law I ought to languish and die, from very 
desperation, in a prison ; and that I still hoped to find 
a listener in the compassion of a pope, who had 
promised to Italy and to Christianity a new order of 
things. I concluded by saying, that if he should still 
persist in denying to me this prayer for justice, I 
would, at whatever risk, make use of the liberal press 
and other languages, to notify the entire world of the 
wrongs inflicted upon me. It was not the pope him- 
self who was adverse to my appeal. The sacred con- 
gregation of the bishops and priests, upon whom it 
devolved to decide the question, with facility granted 
leave to such sisters, occasionally, when a physician 
certified that their health required it. The Holy See, 
then, had no motive in particular to deny my appeal. 
The obstacle existed in Naples, because the law re- 
quired the vote of the Ordinario, in verification of the 
demand. Now, the cardinal, for reasons best known 



FIFTEENTH OF MAY. 333 

to himself, obstinately opposed me. Two years and 
a half had already passed since I had been contending 
against his influence to no purpose. 

The fifteenth of May arrived, — that day, ever to be 
remembered by Neapolitans, as one of the unlucky 
days in their calendar. No friend of human freedom 
remembers it without heaving a sigh for the brave and 
noble men who sacrificed their lives on that day in 
defence of freedom. 

We anticipated, by a couple of hours, the time which 
we usually devoted to morning prayers ; and the 
abbess gave us permission to go up to the lookout, 
where we could see the king, who was to pass by the 
church of San Lorenzo, that being the morning for the 
opening of parliament. 

I had seen him in the month of January previous 
pass on horseback in the midst of the people. I had 
seen him, just as he was under the campanile of San 
Gregorio, untie his tri-colored cockade, which he wore 
on his breast, and hide it in his pocket, as he was then 
approaching the market, in order not to expose this 
emblem of the liberty he had just sworn to concede 
to the eyes of the populace, whose ant-hill was that 
particular quartiere. 

This act, which was unnoticed by the other nuns, 
was a sad augury to me. At ten o'clock the portress 
came running up to say that the Toledo was being 



334 BAREICADES TnRQ-W'X UP. 

bamcadecl, and that we must forthwith close the con- 
vent. 

I ran immediately to the customary window of look- 
out, "^he National Guard, who were on picket duty 
at San Lorenzo, patrolled the street with sad faces. 
The sound of the firing of cannon convinced me that 
the afiair was more serious than I had imagined. The 
humane ( ?) , the faithful ( ?) , the constitutional ( ?) 
prince was regaling his own capital of Naples with 
cannon-balls, and his subjects with grape-shot ! 

Several young gentlemen, mixing with the populace, 
raised two large barricades, — one under our campanile, 
and another at the corner of the Vicolo Cinque Santi. 

The firing of cannon and of muskets continued 
meanwhile to increase. Several hours passed ; but 
there was no cessation of the vomiting of cannon-balls 
and grape-shot upon the city luul people of Naples. 

After a time there was heard, faintly at first, but 
gradually growing louder, the cry of " Viva il Ee ! " 
and the nuns were jubilant, and danced for joy, clap- 
ping their hands. I trembled. 

There could be no longer any doubt. Fortune had 
inclined in favor of despotism. The National Guard 
endeavored to escape, disguised. The drums beat the 
generate at every corner. All was confusion. I 
speedily betook myself to my own room, and, seizing 
the manuscript of so much of these memoirs as was 
then written, with other papers, committed them 



THE PALAZZO GEAVINA BURNED. 335 

to the flames. I was fearful that something might be 
discovered, which might involve both myself and my 
relatives. 

In the mean time the cavalry were ordered to charge 
on the people. These same people, who had aided the 
liberals in the morning to construct barricades, crying, 
" Viva la JVazionef" even these same, destroyed them 
again in the evening, vociferating loudly for the 
perjured king ! 

The splendid palazzo Gravina, which had been set on 
fire by order of the Swiss mercenaries, and was now 
burning, shed the sinister light of its flames far and near. 
In the morning a white flag was spread to the breeze, 
over the smoking ruins of the edifice, in token of 
jubilee and of conquest. 

The city was now placed in state of siege. It was, 
however, ordered by the police that everybody should 
hang out at the window, or from the balcony, some 
white emblem or token. The hergliinelle of the market 
and the neighboring quartieri, noted for their dishonesty, 
went through the streets dressed in white and with gar- 
lands on their heads, half drunk, to the piazza in front 
of the Royal Palace, to congratulate the despot on his 
reported victory, as well as to have a great carousal with 
the soldiers whom they met by the way. 

My position, meanwhile, was not without danger ; all 
predicted that my name would be found on the books of 



336 MY PRAYER GRANTED IN PART. 

the police. Informers and testimony would have been 
easily obtained in the community of San Gregorio. 

In this peril it pleased God to send me a helping hand. 
A capuchin monk, of venerable aspect, with a long, 
white beard, called me to the parlatorio. He said he 
had come from Rome and that he had been charged by 
His Holiness, to assign to me a Breve d' uscita, and at 
the same time to exhoi-t me to patience, because my 
monastical standing had been reputed equivocal hy the 
Holy See. 

This Breve was not precisely what I expected. The 
Holy See had postponed to convenience a great part of 
the justice which I sought. In order not to bring bit- 
terness to the Arch])ishop of Naples, who had always en- 
ergetically resisted my prayers, — adducing the specious 
pretext that my mother received into her house persons 
suspected of atheism and of liberalism, — the Breve had, 
as it is said, two strings to its bow ; it attempted to con- 
tent me, on the one part, by according to me the priv- 
ilege of going out of San Gregorio, and, on the other, 
of satisfying the cardinal by commanding that I should 
go, not to my mother's house, but into a conscrvatorio 
of my own selection. It was well understood, however, 
that I had the right to absent mj^self from the conscrva- 
torio every day, provided that I returned in the evening. 
Besides, it was this time formally ordered that the car- 
dinal should be prohibited from interfering with his veto. 

Although only half satisfied, I saw, nevertheless, that 



PLOTTING OF THE CARDINAL. 337 

to kick against what had been thus accorded to me would 
be the height of folly. 

But to secure even this liberty I was obliged k> em- 
ploy my time actively. I was not ignorant of the 
proverb which says, that if you would make good bread 
you must hnead your dough thoroughly. It was now be- 
yond all doubt that the tide in my affairs had turned. I 
began to see land. That Breve of the pope had arrived 
seasonably. Now, in view of the fact that a messenger, 
ad hoc, had been sent by Pius IX. to sj^eak with me in 
person, without the intervention of the superior authori- 
ties, it led me to believe that I was perhaps aided in 
Rome by some saint whose existence was unknown to 
me, and by whose means I had been enabled to render 
vain the insidious intentions of those who were disposed 
to throw new obstacles in my way. 

I made an exact copy of the mandate for the cardinal. 
He took counsel with several canonici to discover, if 
possible, some means, some ingenious sophism, by which 
he could impede my leaving the convent ; but the order 
was too explicit and would admit of no sort of cavil. 

Some days after, he came to see me. I never knew 
him to carr}^ his head more haughtily ; always an index, 
among the Jesuits, of defeat ! 

After complaining some time of the violent war my 
mother had made on him, he said : — 

" It is your determination, then, to leave the convent 
at all hazards ? " 
29 



338 THE CONSERVATORIOS. 

"It is my desire to leave and I shall leave." 

" In that case you will please make up your mind into 
which conservatorio — " 

'' Do not trouble yourself about that, your Eminence," 
I said, cutting his speech short; "the selection belongs 
exclusively to me." 

And indeed the selection of a conservatorio seemed 
to me, at first sight, an afl'air not worthy of much con- 
sideration. But who would have supposed that at the 
moment of setting my foot outside of my purgatory, 
a new and unexpected cord had ])eeu stretched by the 
priestly camorra, to trip me up? 

Yet such was the fact. By the sisters in the different 
couservatorios my application was submitted to the most 
indecent and humiliating repulses. " On the receipt of 
my application for admission, tlie authorities of each one 
of these receptacles sent to San Gregorio to inquire 
about me, and my reasons ibr making the application, 
etc., etc. 

" Can we be favored with the true motive for which 
Sister Enrichetta desires to go from your convent into a 
conservatorio ? " 

" Eh, figliuola mia, who can tell ? They say this thing 
and that about her, but — " 

" They say that she sustains a bad name." 

"Oh, no, quite otherwise. She possesses rare quali- 
ties; good, docile, generous, and a good friend, etc., 
etc. Nevertheless, there are those who make grave 



CONSEKVATORIO DI COSTANTINOPOLI. 339 

charges against her, but everybody, you know, is talked 
about." 

"For example, what do they say of her?" 

"It is said that she procures and reads prohibited 
books ; that, in an underhand manner, she supplies poi- 
sonous articles to the journals of the liberal party ; that 
she sometimes leaves the coro, to write poetry in her 
own room ; that she is hatching a project of ecclesias- 
tical reform, which would have for its first effect the 
abolition of the monastic orders ; that — that — that — " 

Here the good woman buckled on a long string of 
formidable charges against me, then suo jure, con- 
demned me to everlasting tortures, and then adjusted 
the slip-noose around my throat ; and when she had 
me struggling between heaven and earth, she ex- 
claimed, in a charitable tone : — 

" Nevertheless, she is so good ! " 

At the sight of so frightful a portrait as this, who 
would consent to receive the original into his house ? 

I then turned to the 7^tin of the lower class, and I 
found all their doors closed against me. Seeing myself 
surrounded by new machinations, and dismayed by the 
course affairs were taking, I wrote to the cardinal a 
short but pithy letter, to anno mice to him, that if he 
had not sufficient power to give effect to the orders of 
the pope, I would make an application to Eome myself. 

The cardinal went immediately to the Conservatorio 
di Costantinopoli, and gave orders that their doors 



340 I LEAVE THE CONVENT. 

should be opened to me forthwith. The sisters urged, 
in opposition, that they had no disposable room. 

" Subterfuge ! " said he ; " no matter ; then some one 
of you must cede her room to the Caracciolo." 

There were plenty of rooms found then at my dis- 
posal ; but, before being admitted, I was obliged to ad- 
vance forty ducats as an entrance fee. I now proceeded 
to make the necessary preparations, assisted by Maria 
Giuseppa, who was as much elated as I was myself, at 
the prospect of the change. 

The nuns of San Gregorio, not knowing in what other 
manner to show their spite towards me, finally succeeded 
in getting the authority of the cardinal to prohibit me 
from carrying away the articles of silver and otlier ob- 
jects of value, which, according to the custom of that 
community, I had inherited from my aunts at their 
death. 

The morning of January 28, 1849, two carriages 
stopped outside of the gate, in one of which was my 
mother; in the other, the vicar. I was very much 
affected at j^arting with a few of the older nuns of this 
convent, who had shown some comjDassion for me, — all 
women of the most sincere piet}^, — and when I asked 
their pardon, if I had at any time inadvertently caused 
them any molestation, they were moved to tears. I 
should have liked, too, to take formal leave, even of 
those who had made war upon me ; but they were not 
to be seen ; they had taken themselves out of the way. 



I LEAVE THE COlSrSHENT. 341 

I then descended to the church, bent my knees rev- 
erently before the high altar, and, raising my spirit to 
the throne of grace, I returned thanks with a profound 
heart. After nine years of cruel suffering, I finally 
recrossed that threshold which I hardly had dared to 
hope I should ever live to cross again. 

"Come, be quick," said my mother, a little impa- 
tiently ; " how long you have made me wait ! " 

She, on whose account I had already waited nine long 
years, could say this to me ! 

The carriages moved away. At a few steps from the 
gate, I turned to look once more at the high and naked 
walls of the convent, and the campanile and the steps 
and the pilasters of the temple. The noise made by 
the iron gate, as it swung to on its hinges, reminded me 
of the day when, by the same gate and a similar noise, 
I was separated from all that I held dear, and I found 
myself repeating the oft-quoted lines : — 

" E come quel, che con lena aflfannata, 
Uscito fuor del pelago alia riva, 
Si volge air acqua perigliosa, e guata; 
Cosi r animo mio, ch' ancor fuggiva, 
Si volse iudietro a rimirar lo passo, 
Che non lascio giammai persona viva." * 



'■ As one, who, with suffocating breath, 
Thrown from the mighty deep upon the shore, 
Turns his eyes and gazes on the perilous waves; 
So, mentally, did I, who still was fleeing, 
Turn to look upon that strait 
That none hath passed and lived, 
29* 



CHAPTER XIX. 

CONSERVATORIO DI COSTANTINOPOLI. 

History of the establishment— Permission to go out daily in a carriage — The 
ferocious portress — Nominated canoness of Bavaria— The three parties in 
the conservatorio — Impertinence of the superior — Scenes with her — She 
receives a merited castigation and is terribly frightened, and benefits by the 
lesson she receives — My mother makes a personal application to the pope for 
my enlargement, and fails — The pope visits Naples — Comes to the convent 
of San Giovanni, whither we go to see him — I receive a special benediction 
from him — My poverty — Am obliged to live on black bread — The cardinal 
refuses to jdeld— Flight. 

The sisters of the conservatorio waited for the new 
comers at the door. The ceremonies due to the vicar 
beiug terminated, and my mother having departed, they 
led me to the room of the abbess to dinner, as they had 
no refectory in common. Here I dined with the supe- 
riora and three other nuns, after which I was taken to 
the second floor, to the room which had been assigned 
to me, which was also near the church. 

The city of Naples was devastated in 1526 by a hor- 
rible pestilence, which destroyed sixty thousand lives. 
On its disappearance, they voted to the Madre di Dio 
a small chapel. When, subsequently, in 1575, the 
same malady appeared again over all the rest of Italy, 
without arriving at Naples, it pleased the city to ex- 
change the modest chapel for a temple, to which, in 

342 



HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT. 343 

1603, was added the couservatorio, — a noble, vast, and 
commodious fabric, situated in one of the most densely- 
populated quarters of the city. I found there only a 
few inhabitants, fourteen oblates, twenty educande, and 
four converse. The oblates wore the habit of the Im- 
maculate Conception, and the educande, besides being- 
taught needle-work, received a little instruction in 
letters. 

I had been for so long a time weaned from great 
crowds and thoroughfares, from the flux and reflux on 
the squares, and that clamorous chattering, that deafen- 
ing noise of wheels, all characteristic of Naples, that I 
thouo-ht, at first, that I had somehow come out aofain 
from the shadow land into the living and breathing 
world. I felt my eyesight renewed, my lungs dilated, 
and my spirits soothed. I felt that I saw no longer 
before me that enormous wall of the clausura, which, 
for nine years, had compressed my chest and oppressed 
my respiration like an incubus. I heard the people 
pass, heard the noise of the carriages, pedlers, and sol- 
diers. To the windows I could not go, because they 
were too high from the floor. I found myself in one 
of the finest streets of Naples, and I could easily im- 
agine that I was lodged rather in a private house than 
in a convent. All, in short, seemed new to me ; all 
singular and curious ; the free air, the sounds, the light, 
the movements, and even the countenances of my fel- 
low-creatures. My own person seemed to be a sort of 



344 PEEMISSION TO GO OUT DAILY IN A CAKEIAGE. 

exotic, transplanted from a distant country, and I was 
even a curiosity to myself. Nor should I fear to be 
considered very outre, if, in order to depict that sin- 
gular phase of my interior life, I should confess to 
having many times interrogated the looking-glass as to 
my personal identity. 

The Breve permitted me to go out every morning ; 
but the cardinal, who had been playfully nominated my 
Sir Hudson Lowe, prohibited me from going out on 
foot. My mother came, therefore, to take me in a car- 
riage, kept me to dinner, and at sundown brought me 
back. 

I have said that everything seemed new to me. 
Why should I not add, more humane ? The air of San 
Gregorio w;is impregnated with the musty smell of the 
vaults for the dead, an atmosphere charged with a mephitic 
miasma, which, from all sides, infected the organism 
more or less acrimoniously and balefully. Eeturning 
to an atmosphere free and healthy, and to the society 
of relatives and friends, to the quiet communion of the 
senses, of the hopes, and of patriotic emotions, — re- 
stored, in a word, to the embraces of humanity, I soon 
experienced its beneficial influences. 

By degrees my reason disentangled itself from the 
thick darkness which obscured it, and my heart, hiding 
itself in its inmost recesses, inflamed by sterile strug- 
gles, and become savage in its isolation, returned to 
become inebriated anew in the conceits of that super- 



THE FEROCIOUS PORTRESS. 345 

human harmony which is described as loving one's 
neighbor as one's self. Shall I confess it ? I now began 
to see, for the first time, in what the Christian religion 
truly consists. Faith, which till now had, with a des- 
potic empire, governed all my wishes ; that faith which I 
had seen sullied in the practice of an imbecile piety, 
vituperated in hate of all who do not wear the insignia 
of the church ; that faith I now felt to reflow within me 
in robust jets, in the free exercise of the faculties of 
the soul, in the efficacy of thought and of sentiment, 
and in the participation in the sufferings of others. 
What more? The notes, which in the moments of 
consecration and of elevation flowed from the organ, 
affected me profoundly, and ennobled me ; and I never 
went out from the mass better disposed to charity than 
I did in these days, when I had the opportunity to 
respire the free air from which Christianity itself draws 
both life and vigor. 

Better still would have been my new condition, but 
for two things which molested me. Public curiosity, 
which, attracted by the nun's habit which I wore, 
examined me as though I had been an animal from the 
menagerie ; and in the conservatorio itself, where, in- 
stead of a nun of the coro for a portress, they had a 
ferocious conversa, but a little removed from the 
cannibal. 

This woman might very well have figured in a me- 
nagerie on account of her form, which participated at 



346 PROHIBITED FROM GOING OUT. 

once in that of the animal human, and of the Siberian 
bear. Her forehead was not more than two inches high, 
her eyebrows were eternally contracted, her eyes dimin- 
utive and bloodshot, her nose flat, her mouth armed 
with formidable tusks, which projected outside of her 
lips, and with all, a snarling voice. When she looked 
at you, it was a menace ; and when she spoke, it was a 
growl. 

The gate of the convent was always closed at sun- 
down. Any arrival five minutes later always put her 
in a fury ; she ground her teeth, rolled her eyes wildly, 
and would mutter something in this fashion : — 

^'^ Malnaggia to the cardinal for the present he has 
made to the conservatorio of a nun who wants to go 
out every day ! " 

Towards the end of October following, the cardinal 
sent an order to the abbess, prohibiting me absolutely 
from going out ! Behold me, then, reduced again to 
my former condition ! 

"Nuovi tormenti, e nuovi tormentati." 

In response to one of my remonstrances, the cardinal 
came to see me, and said that it was not permitted to a 
nun to cross the corso in a carriage ; nor, besides, was 
it right that the oblates of the conservatorio should be 
scandalized by my going out so much. 

"What," he added, "would be the condition of our 
most holy religion, and, in particular, of the monastical 



CANONESSES OF BAVARIA. 347 

orders, if the nuns all felt, as you do, the necessity to 
go out every day into the open air ? " 

Irritated by this new act of cruelty, and taking shame 
to mj'self that I should be anew subjected to the tyr- 
anny of the proud priest who had again become the 
arbiter of my liberty, I determined to do ever3^thing I 
could in order to throw from my neck this ignoble yoke. 
To this end, it occurred to me to obtain, through an 
eminent friend, a diploma di canonichessa, which, if I 
should succeed, would secure me this preliminary ad- 
vantage ; God and circumstances would aid me to the 
complete reacquisition of freedom. 

The noble and religious order of the Canonesses of 
Bavaria conforms to that of the Commanders of Malta, 
in denying matrimony to the women who belong to it, 
and in permitting those who remain single to reside in 
the bosoms of their own families. By the favor of the 
Prince Dendia, very potent at the court of Monaco, I 
obtained the nomination and the insignia in a very short 
time ; and, in the hope of seeing me liberated by this 
means from all annoyance, my generous benefactor. 
General Salluzzi, paid the sum of two hundred and 
forty ducats. 

One apprehension alone remained. Would the court 
of Naples accord the Eoyal Exequatur ? By good for- 
tune, the minister Fortunato signed the act of assent 
without a suspicion that I was a cloistral nun. 

Obtaining this much thus easily, I took a further step 



348 THREE PARTIES IN THE CONSERVATORIO. 

in advance. I endeavored to get from Eome a permis- 
sion which should authorize me to pass from the order 
of San Benedetto to that of Saut' Anna delle canoni- 
chesse di Bavaria, but I became finally entangled in a 
priestly ambush. The cardinal answered me, face- 
tiously, that I could wear the Bavaresi insignia over 
the dress of the Benedettine nun ! 

One disaster follows another, says the proverb. 

The sisters of the conservatorio were divided into three 
parties. One was that of the abbess, composed of the 
oblate sisters, and superlatively bigoted and fanatical for 
the priests ; the second, of the younger ones, not espe- 
cially enemies to progress and civilization ; the third was 
composed of the educande, who did not league with the 
first, nor sympathize with the second. The mutual ani- 
mosity between the parties was carried to that degree 
among the nuns, that when they met in the garden, or 
on the corridor, they either turned their backs on each 
other, or one party retired entirely. 

That sovereign of France was less pufied up with his 
own importance, when he said, lo Stato son' io (I am 
the State) , than she who was the leader of the fanatical 
party ; that is to say, the abbess was, in the exercise of 
her dominion over a few women. Stimulated by some 
natural ability, but petulant and intractable, niggardly 
as possible, and, above all, obstinate, ignorant, and a 
bom bigot, she would have made excellent material for 



IMPERTINENCB OF THE ABBESS. 349 

a pope, if she had been born a man. Here is a picture 
which one of the sisters of the opposition, who was 
rather disposed to be severe, drew of her, on seeing 
her enter the saloon : " Behold the anti-pope ! " 

Prejudiced against me by the information she had 
already received from the nuns of San Gregorio, was it 
possible foi; me to remain in the conservatorio without 
becoming an object of the most vigilant espionage? 
The abbess perceived very soon my sympathy for the 
sisters of the liberal party, and I, of course, fell from 
her grace, and finally from the common courtesy of a 
passing salute. More than one evening, having gone to 
her, according to custom, to say, " Good-night," she did 
not deign to receive me ; and I, as a consequence, took 
no more trouble to call on her again for that purpose. 
None of the nuns of her party noticed me any longer. 

Although a stranger to that community, I conformed 
myself to their customs, and took a lively interest in 
their afiairs. My benevolence and spontaneity in the 
matter were interpreted to my disadvantage by the 
abbess, who, forgetting that I was a claustrale, while 
she was only an oblate, attempted to rule me with a 
high hand, not otherwise than if I had been a little 
school-girl. 

She saw on my table, one day, a couple of volumes 
of Cantu's history. She took them up, turned over 
several leaves yet uncut, then putting the book down, 
said : — 

30 



350 SCENES WITH THE ABBESS. 

"I believe that these volumes are political, and, in 
consequence, excommunicated ! and here, signora mia, 
I take this opportunity to declare to you, that books 
which are put in the Index cannot enter into my conser- 
vatorio." 

Another time, a servant of our family called and 
asked for me, to give me a pair of buskins, which my 
sister had sent to me. I went out from the coro to re- 
ceive them, and, seeing me talking with him, she said, 
with imperial gravity, and pointing towards the door : — 

"The coro is the place for meditation. Kemaiu 
there!" 

I looked up at her to be certain that she was address- 
ing herself to me. She was standing like a statue, with 
her eyes directed to my face. I then said to her : — 

"You must know, signora, that impertinences to the 
Caracciolo are not suffered with impunity. I am neither 
an educanda nor a nun of the conservatorio. When I 
go to the coro, it is of my own accord. Now, since 
you exact it, I shall not go there again ! " 

A few days subsequently, an occasion presented itself 
for me to do a great service to this community, and lay- 
ing aside ray resentment at the rudeness of the abbess, 
I set about it cheerfully. It was thus : — 

For many years the sisters of the French order of 
Vincent St. Paul had used a part of this conservatorio 
for a public school. Not contented with the portion 
which they already occupied, they laid claim to the 



PEACTISE MUSIC. 351 

entire place and were about to succeed in obtaining it. 
The nuns of the conservatorio were in consternation at 
this danger, and, having no other protection, they 
thouo;ht of having recourse to the king. 

By the influence of General Salluzzi, I speedily ob- 
tained an audience for the abbess and one for the gov- 
ernors of the conservatorio. Nor did I confine myself 
to this alone, for I asked the general to make a special 
application; and a royal decree was speedily issued 
favorable to my hosts. 

But that these people were like the cat which responds 
to caresses with a scratch, was a little later demonstrated 
to me. Shut up in a convent as I was at eighteen years 
of age, I had only half completed my studies. Teachers 
and books being* prohibited in the convent, I had not 
been able to cultivate the study of letters by myself and 
in secret. Now my condition was changed ; and having, 
like all Neapolitans, a passion for music, I bought a 
piano-forte, intending to resume my former practice. 

If a bombshell had fallen in the conservatorio it would 
not have produced more consternation than that inno- 
cent instrument did. The bigots armed themselves 
with scruples, and, in order to avoid their murmurs and 
maledictions, I restricted myself to playing only. But 
that was not enough. They sought a pretext to make 
me despise their conservatorio, it was clear. 

I was one day practising the introduction to the 



352 THE NUNS SCANDALIZED. 

Tyrolese of William Tell. Maria Giuseppa came running 
to tell me that the abbess was in a fury against me. 

"Why?" I asked. 

" Because, she says the nuns are scandalized by the 
piano-forte and that it cannot be permitted any longer, 
music having always been prohibited in the conserva- 
torio." 

I went immediately to the room of the abbess, who 
received me without even inviting me to take a seat. 
No oriental caliph could have composed himself to 
greater stateliness and gravity to receive one of his 
subjects. 

"From my conversa," I said, "I received your mes- 



" Yes," she replied, "I am very muclT dissatisfied with 
you for the scandal which your playing on the piano 
produces." 

"I do not, indeed, understand how simple piano-forte- 
playing can scandalize any one." 

" Yesterday you were playing a Tarantella" 

Here I laughed, unintentionally. 

"In the first place," I said, " I have not played any 
such thing. It was a piece of music of Rossini ; you, not 
understanding music, have been mistaken. But that 
aside ; if, instead of serious music, I had played a Taran- 
tella, or the aria of a love song, is not the same or simi- 
lar music executed on the organ in every church during 
the time of mass and of the benediction ? " 



MERITED CASTIGATION. 353 

" This badinage I do not understand," and, stamping 
her feet and ge&ticulating, she added : — 

" The cardinal told me that you would not stay here 
more than six months, and it is now already more than 
a year that you have been here, and nothing is yet said 
about your going away." 

I now made up my mind to castigate the proud imbe- 
cile. We were quite alone. I assumed an affable 
manner, softened my voice, and, approaching her mys- 
teriously, said : — 

" Good mother, if any one should hear you speak thus 
severely to me, he would believe, certainly, that you 
were impatient to get rid of me. Now, who is there in 
this community that does not know the sincere affection 
which you entertain for me, — the maternal care which 
you take of me ? Better than any one else, I know that 
I pay you the same amount of money ; that I respond to 
you with equal benevolence — " 

"Since when?" she asked, smiling sardonically. 

" I gave you proof of it some weeks ago ; I will now 
give you another and more positive one. It is no longer 
now the question of being able to retain this property ; 
but your own honor, your position, and perhaps even 
your liberty may be at this moment in — " 

"Gesu, Gesu, Gesu!" she exclaimed, terrified; "do 
they threaten my position, my liberty? What do you 
know of these things, figlia mia ? I hope you would not 
make fun of me." 



354 THE ABBESS TERRIFIED. 

"There is impending over you, I fear, a tremendous 
and irreparable misfortune." 

" Speak, for mercy's sake ! " 

" A danger, horrifying and frightful." 

" The blood freezes in my veins." 

" Poor creature ! the loss of the abbessate will be as 
nothing compared to the other troubles which await you. 
You may be taken to prison by the police ; may be 
obliged to sit in the seat assigned to crim — " 

" Gesu, Gesu ! " 

" — You may be condemned to the galleys, or at 
least to solitary confinement, with an enormous chain at 
your ankle." 

"Gesu, Gesu!" 

" — Put perhaps on bread and water, and compelled 
to sweep the streets, to pick — " 

I should have tormented her longer if I had not dis- 
covered that she was near fainting. The unhappy creat- 
ure trembled from head to foot, her breath was failing 
her, and she looked pale as a corpse. 

When I found that she was a little recovered, I con- 
tinued : — 

" You are not ignorant, good mother, of the immense 
good-will the French nuns entertain for you." 

" Let them keep their good-will to themselves," an- 
swered the malignant old woman, in a weak voice, de- 
pressed now from the apex of pride to the depths of 
despair. 



THE ABBESS TERRIFIED. 355 

"The old tradition well says : — 

* From Spaniards and Imperialists, 
Erom French and Cardinals, 
Libera nos, Domine.' 

" But to come to the point : They say that at the 
meeting you had with his majesty, you attempted to 
blacken the reputation of your rivals of San Vincenzo. 
The king took note of it, to make a public laughing- 
stock of them, and of you, also. As soon as the French 
nuns received a hint of the calumny, they were ready 
and resolute to return blow . for blow. They have 
already concerted their plan of attack ; the accusation 
is made, the French minister and all the subjects of 
the republic are in motion, the police are on foot, the 
capital is in a hubbub, while you occupy your own 
time with these miserable trifles." 

She placed her hands upon the table to help herself 
to her feet ; but she had not the strength to rise, and fell 
back heavily on her seat. 

" I may at least be permitted to know of what crime 
these wretches accuse me," she demanded, more dead 
than aHve from fright. 

"Of conspiracy; of liberalism; of high treason. A 
conspiracy in your conservatorio . . . liberal nuns . . 
and you their Masaniello . . . testimony taken by the 
inspectors . . . letters intercepted . . . documents 
which tell the story . . . proofs and indications indis- 



356 THE ABBESS TERRIFIED. 

putable. Poor creature, to what a sad condition you 
have arrived ! " 

''Miserere mei Deus! I, Masaniello ! I, guilty of 
high treason ! What execrable machinations ! " 

" These are the charges." 

"Do you believe there is any help for me?" 

"Alas, I fear not !" 

" And the sisters of the conservatorio ? " 

"Are for the most part your enemies." 

"And you, dear and good creature, you faithful and 
generous Enrichetta ? " 

At this point, I ran to the window, and from the win- 
dow to the door, half opened it, listened, and then 
returned in haste to the abbess. 

"The police! the police!" I cried, wildly. "They 
are coming in, even now ; they are at the gate !" 

" The police, reverenda, are entering the conservato- 
rio, with fixed bayonets ! " cried Maria Giuseppa, who 
had heard all ; and opening the door wide, precipitated 
herself into the room. 

The old woman, stimulated by the terror of an immi- 
nent catastrophe, did her utmost to rise and support 
herself on her feet, and succeeded ; moved a step in 
advance, and throwing herself at my feet, and embrac- 
ing my knees convulsively, said : — 

"To you, my faithful friend, and to you alone, I com- 
mit myself. Save me ! Was it not you who saved the 
convent from invasion by these powerful French ? Ah I 



THE ABBESS TEREIEIED. 357 

lend me, once more, yom- magnanimous aid. In you 
alone I repose the hope of my safety, angel of good- 
ness ! " 

My efforts to raise her from that humble position 
were vain ; she continued only the more closely to cling 
to my knees. 

* I am sorry, reverenda," I said, then, " that I cannot 
help you this time. Having just been dismissed by 
you, aud being obliged to go, I am constrained to aban- 
don 3^ou to the horrid destiny that awaits you." 

"1^0, no, do not go away ; do not abandon me, I be- 
seech you. Remain here, and play and sing as much 
as you please. 

" Oh, no, no !. I must go away." 

"I will not permit it. No, stay, for mercy's sake." 

I then concluded the comedy with a hearty laugh, 
and taking her by the arm, I raised her from the floor. 

"Henceforth," I said to her, reassuming a serious tone, 
aud placing her on a chair, " henceforth, do not assume 
quite so haughty manners, if you do not wish to be 
humbled in the dust. This fright may serve you for a 
lesson. As for me, I will keep my word ; I am deter- 
mined to leave your conservatorio ; but I shall do it at 
my own convenience, and not at all to suit you." 

To aid her to recover herself a little, I called for a 
glass of water and gave it her to drink. Then, with 
a most amiable submission, she regarded me awhile at- 
tentively, aud, holding out her hand, said : — 



358 APPLICATION TO THE POPE. 

" I hope that no account of this scene will find its 
way into the public prints. Let me be assured of this, 
— another glass of water, please." 

From that time forward I passed my time, not hap- 
pily, but free from molestation, nor had I any more 
occasion to complain of the eccentricities of the superi- 
ora. As to the police, — that was a chance in store for 
me, not for her. 

The liberal cause in Italy was being precipitated to 
fatal ruin. Charles Albert had just been beaten by the 
Austrians at No vara, and was obliged to abdicate, and 
to abandon Italy. The pontifical court, encouraged by 
that defeat, invoked from Gaeta the assistance of the 
Catholic governments for aid to repossess itself of Rome 
and Austria. Spain and France had already responded 
to the call. In Tuscany, the dominion of the Grand 
Duke had been re-established by a rising of the people 
in favor of the old regime ; whilst Venice, abandoned to 
herself, and Rome, closely besieged, struggled with 
their oppressors ; the first .against the Austrians, the 
other against the French, with heroic efibrts of bravery. 

Although profoundly afiSiicted by the unhappy con- 
dition of Italy, I did not lose sight of the hope of 
cutting short my connection wdth the Benedettine order. 
In answer to my prayers, my mother went to Gaeta to 
present to Pius IX. a petition, in which I asked of His 
Holiness an act of secularization, with the pledge to 



FAILUEE OF THE APPLICATION. 359 

remain bound by my vows not otherwise than as a sim- 
ple canonichessa. And as the nuns of San Gregorio 
had made a claim for indemnification against my rela- 
tive, who had given his obligation in my favor, at the 
time of my taking the veil, to the amount of a thou- 
sand ducats, I implored His Holiness, besides, that he 
might be declared exonerated from this unjust exaction. 

Pius IX. seemed to be moved by the entreaties of my 
mother, and the prayers of my younger sisters. He 
turned around to look for writing materials ; and, as he 
could not at that moment lay hands upon them, he di- 
rected my mother to return two days later for his 
answer. 

Meantime my persecutor, the archbishop and cardi- 
nal, hearing of this new attempt of mine, departed in 
great haste from Naples for Gaeta, and arrived there, 
bearer of that famous letter which I had addressed to 
the pope, under the seal of the confession, — which he 
had intercepted and opened ! 

On the day appointed, my mother returned to the 
pope. She found him changed. "Signora," said he, 
gravely, " let your daughter be contented with what she 
has already obtained. Who seeks too much, finds 
nothing. She would like to change her habit and con- 
dition. We cannot consent to it. What would the 
other nuns say, or do, who are bound in the same man- 
ner? We had forgotten her name, day before yester- 
day. The Cardinal Riario has reminded us of it, and 



360 PONTIFICAL BREVE. 

we have ourselves to-day read a petition which she 
addressed to us two years ago ! " 

It was quite evident now that my affiiirs, like those 
of poor Italy, were on the road to ruin. 

About a month later, there came a Pontifical Breve to 
me through the cardinal, by which Pius IX. conceded to 
me the grazia to remain in a conservatorio, under the 
conditions of the clausura, permitting me, however, to 
go out during the summer season for the baths, provided 
my physician ordered it, and it should please the arch- 
bishop to allow it. As to the claim of the nuns of San 
Gregorio on my relative, it was ordered that it must be 
paid over to the convent, but that I should receive, 
during my life, from the convent, a monthly assign- 
ment, proportioned to the sum which I had paid. 

Until now, I had received for my maintenance four- 
teen and a half ducats a mouth ; henceforth I could see 
only a monthly stipend of six ducats, with which I 
must supply food for myself and my conversa ! Such 
is the charit}'- and justice of the nuns I 

Necessity, however, knows no law. I was forced 
now to make my dinner from a single plate, and to ac- 
custom my palate to black bread ! This I was com- 
pelled to do, while my persecutor, decked in purple and 
fine linen, the author of my indigence, was giving 
sumptuous dinners to papal parasites, his colleagues, 
fugitives from Rome, who hung around the Bourbons, 



I 



PIUS IX. VISITS NAPLES. 361 

in order that they might together contrive the means to 
fasten the chains more securely on the people of Italy, 
which were destined, ultimately, to bind them fast ! 

Pius IX. came to Naples. He could change his place 
as well as his color and sentiments. Although he went 
out in public frequently, I deemed it superfluous, and 
even dangerous, to have recourse again to his compas- 
sion. He who had shut his eyes to the groans of his 
country, could he be expected to open them to the 
lamentations of a poor nun ? And flanked as he was by 
Ferdinand II. on one side, and a Kiario on the other, 
how could he listen, even had he been willing, to my 
petition ? 

It was only the 'fanaticism of the lowest Neapolitan 
plebeians which still supported the tottering thrones of 
these two vulgar enemies of human rights. And the 
sovereign of Rome, weak of heart and weaker still of 
mind, thirsty for popularity and incapable of acquiring 
it durably, set the leaky boat of the poor church to 
towing their miserable galley ! 



the conservatorio, the police forbade my carriage to cross 
the piazza delle Pigne. The pope was in the museum 
of pagan antiquities, where the prince royal was enact- 
ing the cicerone, and it was not possible to open a pas- 
sage through the crowd, without danger that the horses 
would trample upon the people. I was obliged, there- 
31 



362 VISITS THE CONVENT. 

fore, to make a very long detour, descending by the 
Vicaria and going up again by Sau Pietro a Majella. 
This invohmtary delay excited the fury of the portress 
of the conservatorio, who, staring at me through her 
squinting and bloodshot eyes, which made my hair 
stand on end, said to me : — 

" If we have the misfortune to have j^ou Avith us an- 
other year, by my faith in God, you shall not put your 
foot outside this door ; " saying which, she raised her 
index-finger in the manner of a chapel-master. 

Before leaving Naples, the pope expressed the wish 
to visit the different convents of clausura, each in its 
turn. When he was about to visit the convent of San 
Giovanni, the sisters of Costantinopoli manifested to 
the sisters of the other convent their desire for an 
opportunity to see the pope in a place which, from its 
proximity, would be so convenient for them. Their 
request was granted. The pope arrived, and, going out 
upon the terrace, blessed, comprehensively, all the 
crowd around him. I do not know what attracted his 
attention to me, but, looking at me attentively, he 
said : — 

"A particular benediction on the cloistral nun !" 

This, I am sorry to say, brought me no comfort. I 
needed health, tranquillity, and emancipation from igno- 
ble servitude. Now, which of these benefits did this 
benediction confer upon me ? 

In a few days Pius IX. returned to Eome, thanks to 



PEESECUTIONS. 363 

foreign bayonets, joyous as was bis predecessor, wbo, 
at tbe fall of Eienzi, returned as bisbop and master of 
tbe Eternal City. Tbe cardinal selected tbis moment to 
renew bis war upon me. 

I was told tbat tbe utmost rigors of tbe clausura were 
about to be visited upon me ; tbat it was proposed soon 
to restore me to my first prison ; and tbat I must re- 
nounce, at once and forever, all bope of freedom, and 
resign myself to tbe condition of tbe otber nuns, and 
not attempt again to recover any furtber liberty; and, in 
compensation for tbis act of abdication, I was to be 
permitted to see, dimly, in tbe sbadowy future, tbe 
bonor of an abbessate, wbicb, by a special Breve, not- 
witbstanding my age, I was to obtain. 

How mucb more attractive to me was tbe certainty 
of black bread, wbicb I divided witb my good and 
faitbful Maria Giuseppa ! I replied to tbe cardinal, tbat 
I preferred to sojourn free in a cabin ratber tban be an 
abbess in a prison ! 

How did His Eminence reply? By taking from me 
even tbe pitiful montbly pittance of six ducats ! 

I was left, tbcn, as tbe Tuscans say, " on tbe sands of 
Barbary." Of needle-work I knew a little, and " God 
wbo tempers tbe wind to tbe sborn lamb," bad not de- 
prived me of industry nor ability. I sbould bave 
preferred to earn my livelibood by tbe work of my own 
bands, ratber tban to depend upon tbe cbarity of tbe 
nuns of tbe conservatorio, or of any one else. But 



364 FLIGHT. 

how can one expect to find anj'thing to do in the 
enemy's house, and while groping about in the darkness 
which overshadows the future? 

To one of my relatives who taxed the cardinal with 
his cowardly persecution of a woman, impenetrable as 
flint, he replied : — 

" Her mother is rich ; let her provide for her ! " 

Extended on this Procrustean bed, — squeezed in, to 
say better, between the door and the wall, — and desti- 
tute, finally, of the means of subsistence, I had recourse 
again to my native energy of mind, and determined to 
seek an escape by any means, however desperate. 

One evening, instead of returning to the convent ac- 
cording to custom, I notified the abbess, by letter, that 
she might close the door at night without waiting my 
return, for I was not willing any longer to eat the bread 
of others, and should, for the future, remain in my 
mother's house. 



CHAPTER XX. 

L'ANNUNZIATA DI CAPUA. 

The cardinal astonished — Hearranges with the police for my arret,. -A dream — 
Reflections — Begin a letter to the cardinal — Resolve to fly to Capua— My 
mother accompanies me — Reception by Cardinal Capano — Enter the 
Annunziata — Horrible moral condition of the institution— The abbess — 
Dialogue with one of these women — Revelations of another — Her supersti- 
tion. 

My letter to the abbess Avas at once despatcliecl by 
the nuns at Costautmopoli to the cardinal, who was, as 
might readily be supposed, not a little astonished ; nor 
could he be easily persuaded that my flight was real. 

The first explosion of his wrath fell upon the head 
of my confessor, who was bitterly reproved for not 
having anticipated and prevented such an escapade. 

Frightened at the vindictive instincts of the cardinal, 
the cauonico wrote me a note, in a trembling hand, in 
which he supplicated me to return at once to the 
conservatorio. I replied briefly, advising him to give 
himself no further trouble on my account, and to notify 
his superior, if he pleased, that he no longer wished to 
direct the conscience of a rebellious nun. This second 
suggestion was not intended as a mere pretext ; for in 
my rage against the clerical despotism, under which 

31* 365 



300 THE CArirJXAL astoxistied. 

my country was suffering, I did not 'feci it at all in- 
cumbent on me any longer to employ a confessor. 

More than a week passed, and everything remained 
quiet. In the morning I rode out with my mother in 
a carriage ; in the evening, as there was always com- 
pany in our parlor, I remained in my own room, iu 
which I received only a few ladies, with whom I was 
intimately acquainted. 

Soon after, however, I received a letter from the 
vicar, by which I was informed that a canouico, ex- 
pressly charged by the cardinal, w^ould come on the 
day following to talk with me. 

He came, according to appointment, and began to 
exhort me in the name of all the saints of both sexes ; 
to proffer me flatteries and promises ; then to hurl 
menaces ; and counselled me, finally, to return promptly 
to my cage again. I jinswered him distinctly, " NO ! " 
He added that if the motive for ni}^ flight was the sus- 
pension of the monthly assignment of six ducats, that 
that should be restored to me, without fail, as soon as 
I had returned to my obedience, separated myself from 
my relatives, and secluded myself again in the convent. 

His Eminence was willing to concede to me, as a 
favor, that only which was my just due. The canon ico 
wasted his breath for another hour, endeavoring to 
persuade me that m}^ soul was in danger of damnation, 
and that to disobey the cardinal was the same as to 
consign one's self directly to the devil. 



ARRANGES FOR MY ARREST. 3G7 

I replied that my conscience was clearer, I presumed, 
than that of his cardinal. He might very properly fear 
the flames of eternal fire for having so long enacted the 
despot; for what right had he, knowing my repugnance 
for the seclusion, to make my freedom an afiair of state? 

The ambassador perceiving, that instead of dealing 
blows in this encounter, he had received some, excused 
himself and departed. 

After this, I remained two weeks longer in peace. My 
mother lived at this time in the palazzo Ripa, at Ponte 
Nuovo, where my friendships were confined strictly to 
the princess, who was the owner of the palace, and 
General Torchiarlo, another tenant of the house, and a 
person of some distinction. 

The princess came to see me one evening, and told me 
she had learned from the general that Eiario, after hav- 
ing had a secret colloquy with the king, had given 
Peccheneda, director of the police, orders to have me 
ari-ested. 

What kind of feeling could it have been which insti- 
gated these people to give me this information ? Per- 
haps liberal sympathies ! Alas ! Very bigoted and 
much de.voted to the Bourbonic dynasty as they were, 
could they have anything in common with a nun who 
was in rebellion against the institution which oppressed 
her? 

I remember of having heard, even, that a signora 
of their family had held a secret conference with doc- 



368 THOUGHTS OF ESCAPE. 

tors and casuists, about a case of conscience of great 
importance ; if, that is to say, living in the same house 
with mc, she incurred thercljy the risk of excommuni- 
cation ; and the conclusion arrived at by the coterie was, 
that she might do so, provided that she avoided speak- 
ing to or noticing me ! Their anxiety, therefore, to 
notify me of the design of the cardinal, proceeded from 
the fear of having an arrest made in their palazzo, and 
nothing else ! 

It remained for me to decide now what I should do, 
or what step I should take next ; and I speedily deter- 
mined to forestall the arrest by escape. But whither 
should I fly? Any other secure asylum, than that of 
some other bishopric in which I could preserve myself 
from the claws of the cardinal, I could not hope to find. 
"/Vhere then should I look for some generous bishop who 
might extend to me his hospitality and protection ? Af- 
ter a long consideration of the matter, I remembered 
that the Cardinal of Capua, Capano Serra, was a man of 
rare goodness, and I determined to have recourse to 
him. We passed a very anxious night ; every moment 
I was running to the window to see if the police were 
coming, and I thought I heard the door-bell ring a 
thousand times and people coming up the stairs. 

The night air was very heavy and suflbcating. A 
sudden gust of wind, which in its course through the 
streets formed itself nito numerous little whirlwinds, 
taking up clouds of dust, threatened at every new puff 



A DREAM. 369 

to extiiiguisli the lamp which was burning before a pic- 
ture of the Madonna at the corner of the street. The 
sky was everywhere obscured and the blackness of dark- 
ness reigned all around ; everybody in the neighbor- 
hood was asleep ; the streets were deserted, and no other 
sound was to be heard but the slow and measured step 
of the patrol. 

My mother was sleeping on the sofa ; she had not un- 
dressed herself. Towards two o'clock, while seated at 
tli^ window with my head resting against the blinds, I 
became drowsy and had a frightful dream. Three men 
seemed to be seizing me ; one by the arm, another by 
the head, and the third, by the throat ; they dragged 
me down the marble stairs of the palazzo, pulling me 
by the hair and dealing me heavy blows with their 
hands. 

I awoke and was seized wdth chills immediately, which 
succeeded each other rapidly, accompanied with a violent 
palpitation of the heart and the cramp in my throat ; 
signs of a nervous crisis which a moment later seized 
me. Were these convulsions violent or of long dura- 
tion ? I do not know ; no one else knew that I had 
them. I found myself, on my recovery, on the floor, 
my flesh bruised and paining me terribly, and far more 
wretched still in spirit than in body. 

Many sad fears, many sad thoughts, unknown to 
me till now, took possession of my mind and dis- 
turbed my conscience. Carefully looking at this escape 



370 EEFLECTIONS. 

of mine, it now seemed to me only a provisional relief, 
since the police must sooner or later get upon my track ; 
and I thought that to run away, would prove to be a 
course as vain as it would be stupid and injurious, and I 
began to question whether I were not going too far in 
my foolish resistance. 

Where should I go ? What should I do ? I asked my- 
self. Why should I whirl myself around the world a 
fugitive and at a venture ? Were not the fatal vows 
which separated me from mother and sisters sufficient? 
Should I dig still deeper with my own hands the abyss of 
my isolation ? Were I a man, very different indeed would 
be my struggle with inexorable destiny ! But a woman 
— and a woman in the eyes of the world reprobated for 
having too hastily repudiated human society ; poor, sick, 
and without counsel,, or a single pitying hand to snatch 
me from the abyss into which I was sinking and suffo- 
cating ; what or how much resistance could I oppose 
to the combined persecutions of two powers, which with 
a dogged pertinacity still pursued me ? 

The sleep which my mother and sisters were enjoying 
whilst I was awake and abandoned to my own sad 
thoughts, and struggling with contrary affections, and 
the dark silence which surrounded me as if to separate me 
the sooner from the association with those who were dear 
to me, only served to render the picture of my exile 
more horrid and frightful. 

Rather than walk from door to door and beg the bitter 



I 



LETTER TO THE CARDINAL. 371 

bread of exile, would it not be better for me, I said to 
myself, to yield to destiny and resign myself to the hard 
necessity ; placate with dissimulation the ire of my su- 
periors ; with complaisance insinuate myself into their 
good graces, and, if not able to break the chain, at least 
make it a degree lighter to my limbs. Transported by 
moral amendment, assured by my devotion, not only 
would they leave me in peace, but would they not shower 
upon me favors besides ; accord me rank, power, and 
dignities ? Finally, would not an abbessate prove to be 
a pasturage wretched enough for the ambition of a poor 
nun? 

I arose hurriedly, lighted my lamp, took from the 
writing-desk a sheet of paper, and, dipping my pen into 
the ink, with a hand still trembling from the effect of 
convulsions, I wrote the following lines, which I shall 
never forget : — 

" Eminenza : — Everyhody is subject to deviate from 
the right path. Our Lord Jesus Christ alone was horn 
without sin. Misled myself by wicked temj)tations'" . . .. 

Here my pen stopped abruptly, then it fell from my 
hand on the paper, and for a long time I remained with 
my head resting on the table. 

"Wretch!" I exclaimed, finally, jumping to my 
feet and tearing the paper to pieces. " Wretch ! " I ex- 
claimed, "is not the chaiu which you are dragging at 



372 LEAVE NAPLES FOR CAPUA. 

your feet, sufficient, without uow consenting to have 
another placed around your neck? Have you then as- 
pired to freedom only to desert the ship at the moment 
of conflict? Where are honor, generous aspirations, 
faith, and courage? "What have you done with your 
heart and with your conscience?- Even though you 
should remain deaf to the groans of your country, do 
you think you can suffocate the voice of conscience? 
Why do you not take counsel and comfort from the his- 
tory of your own country ? 

" Goaded by opposing passions, governed by weak 
wishes, abandoned to the seductions of other than her 
own family, enticed on every side, miserable Italy fell 
into vassalage, as you have but now proposed to do. 
Then also she languished for a time, imprisoned in the 
cloister, which princes, spiritual and temporal, built for 
her; she cried, she implored, she protested. Conform- 
able to hers, also, are your vicissitudes, common is the 
expiation, common the vows of renovation, common 
also the recent efforts to recover the exercise of her own 
will, — and now you would recede! And at what a 
moment ! On the day before the redemption, whilst the 
shadow of tyranny is already beginning to disappear 
before the splendor of young and regenerated Italy ! " 

At daybreak I left Naples for Capua with my mother. 
The Cardinal Capano received me with rare politeness ; 
he was a man very accessible, void of prejudices and 



CARDINAL CAPANO. 373 

superior to petty revenge. He promised me his protec- 
tion and, after listening to a relation of my troubles, as- 
sured me that he would, as far as was in his power, assist 
me to release myself from this unhappy condition. 

The afternoon of the same day he sent his vicar to me 
to place himself en rapport with me. I found him to be 
a very respectable priest. Not content with receiving 
my confession, which I laid at his feet, bathed in tears, 
he desired, besides, to bring me on the morrow to the 
archbishop, in order that I might relate to him the story 
of my life. 

Being satisfied that I had been influenced only by no- 
ble and pure motives, he asked me for the pontifical 
Breves which I had received thus far. These briefs had 
been left at home, in our hurry, and my mother there- 
fore determined to return to Naples and send them to 
me ; and, as this would necessarily occupy some days, 
the good vicar counselled that, meanwhile, I should en- 
ter a ritiri of the city, free to go out of it at all hours 
of the day, provided that I returned at night to sleep. 
One of these establishments bore the name of " 1' An- 
nunziata." The vicar besought me not to prejudge the 
institution because of its name, for although the proiette 
(Magdalens) were received, and cared for there, there 
were, besides, a small number of religiose who, of 
course, did not belong to that class at all. A portion 
of the furniture necessary for my room was gracefully 
tendered to me by the vicar, and the remainder I hired 
32 



374 ANNUNZTATA OF CAPUA. 

from the public house. Maria Giuseppa, who still 
accompanied me, entered here with me, and my mother, 
two days after, returned to Naples. 

Many attentions were shown to me by the abbess of 
the establishment. The servant of the vicar came every 
day to know if I had any orders to give him, and the 
cardinal had instructed the nuns, as well as the young 
women, to show me every possible attention. On this 
account, the}'' gave me the title of " Eccellenza." 

Meantime, some days passed before Riario discovered 
my place of refuge. Ascertaining it, finally, he bit his 
nails with rage, and wrote a letter to Capano, filled with 
impertinent reproofs for having given me asylum. The 
latter replied, that to receive an honorable religiosa, 
who was not otherwise discontented with her condition 
than as it respected the treatment she had received fi'om 
her superior (but who was not, as his letter intimated, 
a fugitive from prison, guilty of some enormous crime), 
was an act on his part for which the Archbishop of 
Naples should thank, rather than censure him. 

Riario smothered his wrath, to use it at a more op- 
portune season. 

We come now to the ignoble ritiro into which my 
destiny had finally thrust me. 

The Annunziata of Capua is very large, w^ith extensive 
buildings and a very beautiful church. The nuns occupy 
separate rooms ; but the proiette sleep all crowded 
together, in long and dark corridors, into which one 



CONDITION OF THE INSTITUTION. 375 

* 

cannot penetrate without becoming disgusted. There 
were three hundred of these women here at this time. 

I was unfavorably impressed with the squalor, filth, 
and misery, everywhere apparent, of these victims of 
an incautious love. Void of every domestic, or any 
other virtue, which can ennoble the sex, — destitute of 
all elementary instruction, — rude, garrulous, petulant, 
and slothful, they lived here, confined in one large 
room, and appeared more like a herd of brute animals, 
than a family of reasonable beings, living in a Christian 
land, and united under the auspices of the church, with 
the object of moral reform. 

To this disagreeable picture was added the nauseating 
indecency of the familiarity which they kept up with 
the soldiers of the garrison. Nor could the abbess of 
the nuns, who was also the superiora of the proiettes, 
succeed in placing any restraint upon their conduct, in 
this respect. Having become austere and intractable, 
either from infirmity or from the arduous and disagree- 
able nature of the duties which the position demanded 
of her, she had lost all the prudence and aJffability of 
her nature, which were indispensable to the administra- 
tion of an institution composed of materials so raked 
together and anomalous as these were. 

Capaa was, at this time, also afiSicted with serious 
disturbances. The prisoners had revolted, and the 
students of the seminary had done the same thing, and 
had already attempted the life of the rector, and they 



Old THE ABBESS. 

• 

were now threatening the unfortunates of the Annun- 
ziata, and had actually resolved upon uothhig less than 
the death of the poor old abbess. It was intimated, 
too, that they designed to pay their respects to me. 

A wicked trap was laid one day, by one of the in- 
mates, to kill the abbess. There was a room up over 
the main stairway, formed in the shape of a tunnel, — 
a passage-way rather dangerous than otherwise. The vile 
creature who designed this wicked deed, placed herself 
in ambush, at an upper window, and, at the moment the 
abbess was about to pass through the passage, upset a 
very heavy flower-vase, with the intention of having it 
fall perpendicularly upon her head. The poor abbess 
owed her escape from instant death only to having 
stopped a moment as she entered the door, and was 
about to take the fatal step which would have been her 
last. 

One morning, subsequently, she found two large, 
black crosses painted over a skull, on the door, which 
is a menace of death. 

These women placed in operation every means of 
seduction, in order to atti'act my conversa to their con- 
venticle ; but Maria Giuseppa, who for proljity and 
wisdom made an exception to the proverb, not only 
absurd, but false, which says, '' (/lat thy greatest euemij, 
after thy brother, is thy servant,'' — ]Maria Giuseppa, I 
say, far from listening to their overtures, was a most 
rigid censor of their behavior. She blamed them 



THE ABBESS. 377 

severely, on an occasion when, the abbess having been 
confirmed for another term in her office by her superiors, 
these creatures rang the bell, as if for a funeral. 

They made even worse of another circumstance. On 
the evening of a festa, the superiora prohibited these 
wretches from going up to the lookout on pretence of 
seeing the fireworks (the indispensable condiment to 
the religious festa under this government) , but with the 
real object, as she knew, to communicate by signs with 
the soldiers at head-quarters. They were terribly en- 
raged at this prohibition, and, heaping up a pile of a 
dozen of their straw mattresses against the abbess' door, 
they applied a torch, and, as the straw began to burn, 
they began to jump over it, in the style of the ragged 
boys and loafers of Naples, when, gathered together 
in the streets, they set fire to and have a regular 
carousal over the piles of straw which have been thrown 
out from the stables. 

Who, in seeing from a distance, these ragged and 
stockingless creatures, with dishevelled hair and 
brutal features, infuriated to that extent by excite- 
ment and drink, could get rid of the idea that he 
was present at a mysterious vigil of witches and hob- 
goblins ? 

One day, meeting one of these creatures of the con- 
vent who was noisier than any of the rest, who was also 
young, very thin and bony, and whose tongue was never 
32* 



378 DIALOGUE. 

still, I besought her to endeavor to keej) herself a little 
more quiet. After kissing my hand,* she said : — 

"Eccellenza, I am noisy and impudent on purpose." 

"You are jesting with me ! " 

" Gnorano; I am saucy in order to secure a hus- 
band ! " 

" I do not understand you ! " 

"Eccellenza, yes. One who does not play the fool 
here, runs the risk of remaining forever single. In this 
Annunziata here, nothing is done as it is in that of 
Naples, where the young men select their wives by 
throwing down their pocket-handkerchiefs before the 
girl they prefer. Here, the men (handsome and ugly, 
young and old, it matters little) come to the parlatorio ; 
the superiora then calls us out by name, one after the 
other, until the purchaser becomes sick of the offered 
goods. Now you must know that this cunning old 
woman calls first to the parlatorio those who have irri- 
tated her the most ! " 

''Why?" 

'' To get rid of them the sooner ! " 

I could not refrain from laughing. When I met the 
superiora again, who frequently counselled with me how 
she might best regulate the affairs of that panderaomium, 
I suggested to her the expedient of calling the girls, not 

* It is a mark of great respect in Italy, towards a person of superior rank, to 
seize the hand and kiss it. Wlicn a priest or monk goes along the street, it is 
common to see women and children take hold of his hand and kiss it. He, as a 
matter of course, blesses them in return. 



EEVELATIONS. 379 

thus arbitrarily, but by their ages ; for, in that way, she 
would be sure to clisappoiut those who were behaving 
badly on speculation. 

Every day one of the young girls used to come to 
my room to wish me good-morning. She was always 
pale and melancholy, and her aspect seemed to hide 
some mystery which it was difficult to understand. I 
inquired if she was suffering from any indisposition. 
She hesitated, at first, to answer ; but then, in an inco- 
herent manner, she revealed to me, as a great secret, 
that she was a victim to witchcraft. I took pains to 
explain to her, as well as I could, that that was nothing 
but an imposture, and that she must not believe in it ; 
but I soon perceived that it was only pounding ivater in 
the mortar, as they say ; because the poor girl was fixed 
in her belief. 

Having besought her to tell me how she supposed she 
had become infected with this hallucination, she con- 
sented. It was in this wise : She had, she said, been 
enamored, some years before, with a young man, who 
was suddenly called to Naples with his employer. Be- 
fore separating from him, which she did at some distance 
from the city, they bound themselves to each other by 
the most solemn oaths. But she, faithless to her vows 
to the youth, came to Capua, and here formed a friend- 
ship with a sergeant, and violated her oath. As soon 
as her former lover heard of this infraction, he flew to 
Capua, and, feigning to treat her the same as if nothing 



380 SUPERSTITION. 

had happened, invited her to dinner, and gave her some 
pastry he had brought with him from Naples. The day 
after, assuring himself that the faithless girl had eaten 
the pastry, he threw off the mask, and, taxing her with 
her faithlessness, said, "Now I am revenged ! Already 
the witchcraft is at Avork in your stomach. Adieu ! " 

From that day, the poor creature's reason had been 
unsettled. An extreme confusion of ideas and of senti- 
ments had reduced her to that deplorable condition. 

"But why," I asked, "do you obstinately attribute 
to enchantment that which may be only the effect of a 
mere combination of circumstances, or of some poison 
put in the pastr}^ ? " 

" No, no ! " she replied. " I have a devil in my body ! 
I cannot enter a church, nor approach the sacrament ! " 

"Come with me, then. I will take you to the coro 
itself. This devil will be afraid of me ! " 

" No, no ; for pity's sake ! I cannot ; I would sooner 
die ! " 

I seized her by the hand, and, almost dragging her 
along, led her down the stairs. She cried, trembled, 
imprecated, and attempted to release herself. After a 
long resistance, which was redoubled at the door, we 
finally entered. I forced her to kneel at the foot of 
the altar. She uttered a frightful shriek, and fled ! 

Poor Naples ! A century will not suffice to extirpate 
the ferocious superstitions with which thy people are 
beset ! 



CHAPTEE XXI. 

THE ARKEST. 

Sad days in the Annunziata— Cardinal Capano endorses my application to the pope, 
and recommends my secularization — His sudden death, which is a death-blow to 
my hopes — Return to Naples — Father Spaccapietra — Some months of truce — 
Mj' mother goes to Gaeta, and I to live with a married sister — My complicity 
with the liberal movement — My arrest — Consigned to the Ritiro di Mondra- 
gone — My servant not permitted to accompany me — II Morbili — Filthy con- 
dition of the institution — Gallantry of a priest repulsed. 

Sad were the days of my residence at the Annunzi- 
ata ; sadder still the nights, preoccupied as I was with 
the uncertain future. 

On the receipt of my papers from Naples, the cardi- 
nal wrote a long letter to send with them to the congre- 
gation of Bishops and Regolari at Home. The worthy 
prelate supported my demand for secularization, enumer- 
ating the wrongs and the imprudences of Riario, and 
concluded by saying, that as I had no natural disposition 
or vocation for the veil, he esteemed it a miracle that, 
goaded to the extreme of desperation, I had not failed 
to conform to the principal rules of the monastic order ; 
and, seeing the impossibility of persuading me to enter 
the cloister again, he believed it to be due to me, and 
just, besides, that, for the remainder of my life, I 
should be permitted to lay off the Benedettine habit, 

381 



382 DEATH OF CAEDINAL CAPANO. 

and to dress simply in black, and live in the house of 
my mother with the title of canonichessa. 

After reading the letter, which I did in the cardinal's 
presence, I thanked him sincerely for it, then saw it 
properly sealed by the vicar himself, who then placed 
it in a desk to wait the day for the post, after which, in 
a very contented mood of mind, I returned to the 
Annunziata. 

Maria Giuseppa abandoned herself to a childish joy. 
She thought that all our troubles were now ended, and 
so it really appeared. That evening we sat up until a 
late hour, immersed in the pleasure, so dear tc the mis- 
erable, of indulging in golden dreams for the future. 
But of what value are projects, even though substantial 
and mature, when the issue does not second them. 

Two days subsequently, I learned that Cardinal Ca- 
pano had taken to his bed \v1l!i illness. This news 
alarmed me. Five days after, he was dead ! 

And my papers? Still in his desk. And the vicar? 
Suspended, and a new superior appointed provisionally, 
an enemy of Capano. And the successor of the cardinal ? 
Cosenza ! 

Adieu, then, to hope ! 

What could I do further in Capua ? I was on thorns ' 
for the next fifteen days. The ex-vicar counselled me 
not to remain here any longer, because, kuoAviug me to 
have been protected by Capano, Eiario would not fail 
now to renew the interrupted thread of persecution. 



EETUEN" TO NAPLES. 383 

Besides, I had no means to tempt fortmie in any other 
place. To meet my expenses thus far, I had been com- 
pelled to dispose of my piano-forte and some other 
objects of value. 

I returned then to Naples, and took a room in the 
convent of San Mccola da Tolentino dei padre delle 
I Missione, situated in the quartiere di San Carlo alP 
Arena. One father Spaccapietra lived there also, not 
less worthy of veneration for his virtue than for his 
learning, and very potent in Rome, also, which was the 
head-quarters of his missions. I related my troubles to 
him, in extenso, and asked his advice and aid. He was 
a good deal interested in my case. He rubbed his fore- 
head in silence, in the manner of a man who is accus- 
tomed to think before he speaks ; then, turning to my 
mother, he said : — 

" I think that the story of the arrest was only an 
equivoque of General Torchiarlo. It is a measure 
which may be resorted to sometimes, when rigorous 
measures are necessary ; but only when the religiosa has 
given occasion for public scandal, and certainly if she 
carry, the fruit of it in her womb. Will you do me the 
favor to name to me your residence ? I shall see His 
Eminence to-day, and I will let you know what is the 
result of the consultation." 

Reassured by the counsels of this excellent mission- 
ary, I returned to the house somewhat comforted with 
the hope, that Providence had not entirely abandoned me. 



384 SOME MONTHS OF TRUCE. 

A few days passed, and the venerable missionary 
came to inform me that he had had a long conversation 
with the cardinal about my case, who had formally de- 
nied having consulted with the king about me, or ever 
having obtained an order for my arrest. And in saying 
this the cardinal lied; yes, absolutely lied, as I after- 
wards ascertained to my entire satisfaction. 

Spaccapietra said that he was unable to obtain for me 
the proceeds of my dower to San Gregorio ; but that 
Riario had consented to allow me the five months' back 
income, and promised to leave me in peace hereafter. 

After this, I had some months of respite. IMy 
mother, happ}' to see me liberated from the dominion of 
the priests, avoided, during the carnival, giving any 
festivities in her house, as was her custom every year. 
By this precaution I was much gratified, resolved as I 
was to avoid all cause for new molestation, and to lead 
a retired life, divided between domestic cares and stud}'. 
And as the study of the history of my own countrj* 
seemed to me not to belong exclusively to the men, but 
as well to Italian women of our day, I found means to 
procure the best authors in this branch of national edu- 
cation, and read carefully the works of INIacchiavclli, 
Guicciardini, Botta, Santarosa, Colletta, and some his- 
tories of the war for independence in America, and of 
the regeneration of Greece. 

In the month of June one of my sisters, living in 
Gaeta, wrote that her husband was seriously ill, and 



COMPLICITY WITH THE LIBBKAL MOVEMENT. 385 

my mother went to her immediately. I did not accom- 
pany her. After my mother's departure I went with 
my conversa to live in the house of another married 
sister in Naples. 

She lived in the Vico Canale, sopra Toledo, upon 
the sixth floor of a house, being at that time in 
straitened circumstances, on account of her husband 
having been compromised in the movement of 1848, 
and suspended from the exercise of his profession, 
which was that of an advocate. They were also under 
the surveillance of the police. 

The scarcity of my own means, and the penury of 
my brother-in-law, did not permit me to use a carriage 
every time that an urgent necessity called me out of the 
house. Among these urgent necessities was that of 
delivering secret notices to the members of a patriotic 
society, then not less -efficient than beneficial, — but to- 
day, under our present government, superfluous, if not 
pernicious, — a service which a person of the other sex 
could not lend without incurring the suspicions of some 
of the innumerable spies who, at the time, swarmed in 
the streets, in the houses, and even in the churches of 
Naples. 

Now, if I was not able to go out in a carriage, how 
could I expect to go around on foot in the Beuedettine 
dress, in a city where the idlers and boys amuse them- 
selves with making fun of, and impeding the free 
33 



386 A GLEAM OF HAPPINESS. 

passage of the streets to, women who are unaccom- 
panied by gentlemen ? 

I left off, therefore, the nun's habit, and put on a 
plain black silk, similar to the one recommended by 
Cardinal Capano, and which others, as well, counselled 
me to wear. 

Father Spaccapietra left meanwhile for Japan, on a 
mission. Before going he presented me, as a token of 
remembrance, a copy of the " Imitation of Christ." I 
had, besides, the memory of his exemplary character, 
which I esteemed highly. 

The evening of June 13, I returned to my room, 
where, seated with Maria Giuseppa, we talked over our 
past trials in the various cloisters where we had been, 
and mutually consoled, congratulated, and cheered each 
other with the thought that we Avere finally permitted 
to breathe the free air of heaven. All around us, in 
fact, inspired calm, well-being, expansion. Over 
everything happiness seemed to reign. The air was 
tepid, and impregnated with perfume, which was thrown 
off by the flowers that stood in their vases uj)on the 
terrace below ; and we heard at the different windows 
in the vicinity the clear, merry laugh of some young 
girls, just entering upon the world's stage, who had not 
the fear of the convent before their eyes. The moon, 
high in the heavens, pursued its lonely and superb 
course, in all its splendor, attended by a retinue of 
small clouds, silvered and fringed with unparalleled 



A CHAl^GE. 387 

beauty ; and it seemed to me that I had at last arrived 
at the position which Providence had from the begin- 
ning assigned to me, where I was able, freely, to offer 
my feeble co-operation in the service of my fellow- 
creatures. 

But fortune, which so often plays with human felicity 
as with a foot-ball, was preparing to make me pay 
dearly for this momentary gleam of happiness. Maria 
Giuseppa, the most constant and faithful participant of 
my misfortunes, seemed to enjoy unbounded happiness 
in assuring me that she Avould never abandon me while 
she lived. Who could have believed that that evening 
was the last in which we should ever be together ! 

The following day we were all at dinner, when the 
door-bell rang. My sister's servant went to the 
window, which looks out upon the stairway, and, 
seeming to be greatly surprised, told us that a priest 
was looking for me. 

" Let him come in ! " I answered, thinking it probable 
that it might be the ex-vicar of Capua, who was at 
this time in Naples. 

But my heart, which, habituated to disasters, always 
presaged misfortune, began now to palpitate furiously. 

I heard the steps, not of one, but of several persons. 
I went to the door of the saloon to listen, and over- 
heard an altercation between my brother-in-law and 
the new-comers. Going outside I saw a man of colossal 



3»» IL MORBILI. 

proportions, with an enormous head, and a face like a 
full moon, a species of Briareus, who was sitting on the 
divan, as though he was master of the house. Beside 
him sat a priest, pale, thin, and of sinister aspect, 
while my brother-in-law was standing with his hands 
resting on a chair, the picture of consternation. 

Although unknown to me, these two horrible-looking 
creatures frightened me. The giant opened his throat, 
and with a voice not dissimilar to the roar of a marine 
conch-shell, asked : — 

" Is this the religiosa, Enrichetta Caracciolo Forino ? " 

" Yes," I replied. " With whom have I the honor 
to speak?" 

" With the Commissario, Morbili." 

My God, what a name ! I started, as if from a 
violent shock of electricity, — he was the dread of 
Naples ! The Duke Morbili, faithful bully of the king, 
and satellite of Del Caretto, had risen to favor solely on 
account of his great services, which had spread a terror 
at the mention of his name, and the inordinate assiduity 
with which he labored in his vocation. Who was 
there in Naples at that time who would not rather have 
seen, I will not say the devil, but certainly a fire, 
small-pox, or any other murderous disaster enter his 
home rather than il Morbili? 

"And this," he went on to say, pointing to his com- 
panion, "this is a priest of the curia." 

I readily understood now what awaited me. 



MY AEEEST. 389 

" What is wanted of me ? " I demanded. . 

" You are arrested ! " 

" Arrested ! Is it possible ! For what ? " 

" It is quite possible, and you must go with me." 

''Where?"* 

" To a convent." 

"To which convent?" 

" To the Eitiro di Mondragone." 

" Can I know by the sentence of what tribunal, or 
at least by whose orders ? " 

" That does not concern you." 

There are critical moments in which God inspires the 
weak with courage, in order that they shall not be 
entirely crushed by the power of the strong. 

"It concerns me more than it does you," I said, 
proudly. " Nevertheless, I will follow you. I go now 
to dress myself." 

Initiated into all the secrets of the profession of the 
ruffian, Morbili determined to search my room, to dis- 
cover if it offered any mode of escape for me ; but 
seeing that there was but the one door, he was 
pleased to allow me to dress myself freo from his sur- 
veillance. I was followed to my room by Maria 
Giuseppa, who, from her extreme fright, was deprived 
of both reason and speech, and threw the greatest 
possible confusion, not only into her own, but into my 
preparations as well. In half an hour, however, w& 
were both ready. 
33* 



390 GIUSEPPA NOT TO ACCOMPANY ME. 

"Do not look so cast down," I said to my conversa, 
"recompose yourself before going out. It will gratify 
these people too much to see you thus sad." 

" You say well, signora," she replied, and to please 
me she forced herself to smile, while it was only with 
the utmost difficulty that she restrained her tears. 

"You can go ahead," said the commissario to the 
priest, "the signora makes no resistance." 

The vampyre made an obeisance and disappeared. 

Morbili turned to Maria Giuseppa, who, with her 
arms covered with shawls and other articles, stood ready 
to follow me, and asked : — 

" And who are you ? " 

"I am the conversa." 

''You are not to accompany the signora to the con- 
vent ! " added the Cyclops. 

"Why?" we both demanded, at one breath. 

" The signora will be taken to the ritiro ; you will 
go with me to the commissariato to be interrogated, and 
will then be sent to your own home in the country." 

The screams, and lamentations which the poor girl 
uttered, as sh<^ entwined herself about my person, as if 
for protection a,nd refuge, and then her cries and groans, 
and the subsequent desperation to which she gave her- 
self up, took away my self-command. My excitement, 
which from self-respect I strove to repress, caused 
spasms in the muscles of my mouth, so that if I had 
desired to speak, I should have been utterly unable. 



I 



IJE3AVE-TAKING. 391 

Poor Maria Giuseppa, seizing now my hand, now my 
dress, cried : — 

" O my dear adored signora, if you do not wish to 
get rid of your poor couversa, why do you not drive 
these villains out of the house ? " 

The commissario now called an inspector, who was 
standing at the door, and consigned the poor girl to 
him. I said nothing for fear of making a scene, but 
gave to Giuseppa a last kiss, and besought our old 
family servant to go with her, and not to leave her until 
she should be sent to her relatives. Then turning to 
the commissario, I said : — 

"I hope, knowing the respectability of my family, 
you are not going to make me follow you on foot through 
the streets ! " 

"Nor prevent myself and her sister from accompany- 
ing her," said my brother-in-law. 

Morbili ordered a carriage, and permitted my relatives 
to accompany me. Meanwhile Maria Giuseppa came 
up to take final leave of me, and covered my hand with 
kisses. The desolation of this unhappy creature was so 
distressing, that even Morbili might have pitied her. 

" Courage," I said to her, finally, and, releasing my- 
self from her grasp, I went first out of the door. 

The stairs were crowded with the police ; there were 
as many as if they had been about to surprise and cap- 
ture a band of brigands, and more than a hundred per- 



392 EITIRO DI MONDKAGONE. 

sons had assembled outside the street door to enjoy the 
spectacle ! 

The church and the edifice di Santa Maria delle Grazie 
di Mondragone, situated on the San Carlo alle Mortelle, 
form the asylum which Elena Aldobrandini, Duchess of 
Mondragone, established in 1653, in which the Neapoli- 
tan women, reduced to poverty and remaining widows, 
might lead a tranquil and monastic life. To-day there 
are occasionally some educande admitted, but in reality 
the establishment is now destined for, and used as, a 
penitentiary or prison. 

We arrived there a little before three o'clock p.m., 
ascended the steps which lead from the street door, and 
at the ingress of the second we found two priests posted, 
and with them the superiora, who was called here the 
prior a. One of these priests was that spectre of Banquo 
who had come with Morbili to make the arrest ; the 
other was the ecclesiastical superiore of the place, the 
same who, on account of his furious reactionary deeds, 
left in 1848 the saddest remembrances of his name, and 
who, as regio revisore^ expunged from all Italian manu- 
scripts the word eziandio (even or also), because, per- 
haps, he recognized in its termination, dio, the name of 
the Supreme Being ! For his great devotion to the 
Bourbonic dynasty, and for the renown of his oscuran- 
tismo, he was decorated with the order of Francesco 
I., and always styled himself "cavalicro." 



CONDITION OF THE INSTITUTION. 393 

From the number of bows he made to the commissa- 
rio, and from the words which passed between them, I 
gathered that they were old friends, — hounds in the 
same leash ! 

My brother-in-law, who had with difficulty restrained 
his wrath up to this point, broke out now in bitter re- 
monstrances against the cardinal's course. 

"If you are not silent, instantly," said the ecclesiasti- 
cal superiore to him, "I will drive your words down 
your throat by a couple of blows ! " 

I seized my brother-in-law by the arm, and, shaking 
him forcibly, said : — 

" Why do you excite yourself, whilst I, who am the 
victim, am silent? Now that you have seen me safely 
here, pray take my sister and go away." 

Silence was at length restored. The commissario 
took from the priest of the curia a receipt for my person 
and went off, and I hurried my sister away, in order 
that her husband should have no further opportunity to 
compromise himself. 

" Write soon to Gaeta," I said, while embracing her ; 
"write all to mother, and, for mercy's sake, take of Maria 
Giuseppa the same care you would take of me." 

I remained alone with the policeman and two jailers 
at my side. They took me up to the third floor, then 
led me to a large and dismal room, which had the appear- 
ance of a prison for the condemned. Two small holes 
only served to admit light, which was faint and gloomy 



394 PRIESTLY GALLANTRY. 

on account of the height of the palazzo Villannova, 
which was oiDposite. The walls were bare and filthy, 
the roof supported by beams which were uncovered, the 
floor of broken bricks, and for furniture two paralytic 
chairs and nothing else. 

The prioress and prior of the literary inquisition went 
outside the door to consult in a low voice, and I was 
left alone with the priest of the curia. 

Who would believe in the gallantry of a vampyre ? 

Seeing me alone, abandoned, disconsolate, and de- 
prived of every defence, this priest, who was not old, 
thought to profit by the opportunity of ofiferiug me the 
great advantage of his protection ; and, assuming a love- 
making attitude, which only seemed to make his face 
more repulsive still, and extending his hands to me, 
said : — 

" If you need anything here, tell the priora freely, 
from whom you will always receive sympathy, as you 
will, also, even from your devoted servant." 

A most profound bow and smile accompanied this 
last phrase, which only served to expose a set of hor- 
rible teeth ! 

" Execrable monster ! " I cried, fiercely excited, and, 
pointing the way to the door, "away with you, and tell 
him who sent you here, that I hope, with Heaven's aid, 
to see very soon both him and you, and all who are like 
you, sent to perdition ! " 

It brought no blush to his cheeks ; but taking up his 



MY PKATER. 395 

hat he gained the door very stealthily, and I shut it 
upon him. 

Then, returning to the middle of the room, I threw 
myself upon my knees, clasped my hands, and raising 
my eyes to heaven and my heart to God, prayed for his 
aid in this, the most desperate strait of my life. 

I felt that my prayer was heard, and that my heav- 
enly Father listened favorably to the appeals of the 
contrite and humble heart. 



CHAPTER XXn. 



IL EITIRO DI MONDRAGONE. 



horrible incarceration— Visit of the priora— Writing materials denied me — 
Prohibited talking to, or seeing any one, whatever, or even to look out of a 
window — My distress — Am I really sane? — Four days absolutely without 
food — Doctor Sabini — Examination of my trunks by the priest in charge — 
The doctor brings me good news, which proves a better restorative than his 
medicines, and I take food again- The good doctor had deceived me; his good 
news was an invention of his own — "Write to my mother, enclosing my letter 
in my dirty clothes, which I send to her to be washed, and receive answers in 
the same way — Letter to my mother — Determination of the superiors to pro- 
vide me with a confessor — I finally select one, who is objected to by the au- 
thorities, but is finally conceded tome — My mother sees the pope's nuncio, 
who, on hearing of my case, comes to see me — Conflict with the superiore, 
•who, suspecting the means I had employed, himself examines carefully all my 
dirty clothes, and finds secreted in a towel a letter to my mother, which I had 
placed there on purpose to deceive him — Permission finally from the cardinal, 
at the intercession of the nuncio, is given me to send and receive letters under 
seal — One further application to the pope— Another denial— Contemplate 
flight — Dissuaded from it by my confessor, who advises another petition to 
the pope, which is arranged for — The medical certificate. 



Having Idggu for about a year and a half released 
from my former isolation, and reinvigorated by the 
association and uninterrupted intercourse with my rel- 
atives and friends, the eiFects of the silence which now 
surrounded me proved incomparably more cruel. Not 
a single human voice was to be heard ; no trace of a 
living thought ; no longer even the agreeable sounds of 
human industry reached the ear ; nothing, in this new 
desert, but the monotonous buzzing of the flies, to con- 



HORRIBLE INCARCERATION. 397 

trast with the hurricane which had just spent its force 
upon me. One thought alone now occupied my mind. 

Which authority had decreed my arrest, the ecclesi- 
astical or the civil ? "Was I again the victim of Eiario 
and of his camorra; or was it rather some imputation 
of a political nature, the result of espionage, which had 
thrown me into the hands of the officers of the govern- 
ment? 

Probably the first, possibly the second; but more 
probable still, a concurrence of the two. Whatever the 
cause, however, my condition was sad enough now, and 
to the last degree horrible. 

I was unfortunately a woman. Too much given to 
suspicion and to slander, how would the world look 
upon my sudden confinement in a ritiro, whose equivo- 
cal reputation could easily furnish a pretext for cal- 
umny? Situated aloof from all contact with human 
society, by what efficacious means should I be able to 
confute the lies which the priests would not fail to 
spread, to the detriment of my reputation and in their 
own exculpation? 

Against this last and most barbarous blow of destiny, 
I knew not how to oppose that moral energy, with which 
I had till now resisted the blows which misfortune had 
dealt me. To be a man (were it only for a few days) , 

— to find myself in Loudon, Paris, or in America, in a 
free country, owner of nothing but a few sheets of paper, 

— I would have renounced, I will not say existence, of 

34 



398 WRITING MATERIALS DENIED MB. 

which only the Creator can dispose, but surely of a 
throne, if I had had one at my disposal. 

An hour later I heard a light knock at my door. I 
did not answer. It was renewed, and I remained silent. 
At the third knock I heard the voice of the priora, who 
prayed me to open the door to her. 

" Am I the mistress of this hole ? " I inquired. 

" Yes, signora, you are mistress j but you must open 
the door." 

" Break down the door, if you please, then ; I shall 
not open it." 

The priora supplicated me, in the most humble man- 
ner, justifying the . disturbance she was making me, by 
the necessity of doing something for me. I then opened 
the door to her, and saw that she was terrified at the 
attitude I had assumed. Two converse brought a bed, 
a small table, and a lamp. 

"Have the goodness," said I, "to procure me the 
materials for writing." 

She screwed up her features, as one does who has 
something very disagreeable to say. Then mumbling 
over her words, she replied : — 

"I am sorry that I have to tell you, that reading and 
writing are prohibited to you, by the superiors, until 
further orders." 

" Can I not, then, correspond in writing, even with 
my relatives ? " 



1 



KIGOKOUS ORDERS. 399 

"This you can do, provided I read your letters before 
they are sealed, and take notice of the contents of the 
answers before they are consigned to you." 

"Am I prohibited all books, without exception?" 

" We have, here, several devotional books ; these you 
can read as much as you please." 

The circle of my life was all the time contracting. 1 
demanded to know what were the precise orders which 
had been given in my case. 

"Eigorous orders," she answered. "You are prohib- 
ited from seeing or speaking to any one whatever ; you 
cannot receive here, either relatives, friends, or ac- 
quaintances, much less, any stranger, who might come 
by accident to seek you ; and, in order to avoid all pos- 
sible opportunity for clandestine intelligence, you are 
absolutely prohibited from approaching the windows, 
from going out upon the terrace, or into the parlatorio ; 
and the apex of severity — " 

" We shall know when you finish," I interrupted her, 
to say. 

" You are not permitted to have any one in your ser- 
vice." 

" Thanks ! " I said to her ; " how do you call this 
place ? " 

"H Eitiro di Mondragone." 

"It might better be called the prison of the Santo 
Uffizio. You can tell me, perhaps, if I am to be kept 
here a long time ? " 



400 DELIEIUM. 

"lYlio can tell? You may have to remain here two, 
three, five, or even ten years, at the pleasure of the 
superiors. In order the sooner to accustom yourself to 
patience, you had better at once abandon all hope of 
ever getting out." 

" Do not hide the truth from me, I pray you. Am I, 
perhaps, condemned for life? " 

"Recommend yourself to God, and think only of 
your soul ! " 

"It is enough !" I cried. 

And with this, I fell prostrate and senseless on the 
floor. 

When I opened my eyes again, I found myself 
stretched out upon the bed, and alone. I observed 
then, with concern, an unsteadiness in my mind, a dis- 
turbance in my reasoning faculties, the cause of which 
I was totally unable to divine. That I was being de- 
prived of my senses was a fact of which I was clearly 
conscious; but this aberration, whence did it proceed? 
"Was it the effect of a swoon ? Was it excessive grief ? 
Or was it the effect of a contusion on my head, when I 
fell upon the brick floor ? The greater efforts I made to 
seize the helm of reason, which was escaping from my 
hand, the more distinctly I perceived that I was not 
mistress of it, as before. My discernment was weak, 
my memory confused, and all the faculties of the mind, 
in fact, in a chaotic state, and the central idea of that 



DELIRITJM. 401 

chaos, — an idea which took complete possession of me, 
a troublesome picture, and a tormenting anxiety, — was, 
that the man who had loved me so passionately, Do- 
menico, had become a priest, and that, dressed in his 
sacerdotal robes, he seemed to be standing by my side, 
and engaged in reading to me the sentence of my death. 
Then began from this moment, and continued for 
some time, not easy to determine how long precisely, a 
period of my existence oscillating at intervals between 
sanity and a complete confusion of the mental faculties. 
I will spare the reader the annoyance which the account 
of my delirium might occasion him ; but in continuing 
the thread of the narrative, with equal exactness, and 
with the sole duty of not leaving any gap in this place, 
I may be permitted to place here a prayer, arid this is, 
that I may not be aggrieved with the responsibility of 
some acts committed during the intervals of this de- 
lirium, — acts Avhich I shall relate, because they are true, 
but whose reprehensible nature I am the first to acknowl- 
edge and deplore. 

At twilight a conversa entered with a lamp, and be- 
hind her came the priora, provided with smelling-salts 
and small bottles of perfumes for me to smell. I told 
her I had imagined, and desired to put into execution, a 
plan which would frustrate the publicity of my suffer- 
ings. The serious and sombre tone in which I ex- 
pressed my design made her laugh. She was a woman 

34* 



402 LETTER TO SIY SISTER. 

under forty, fresh and vigorous yet, and affable rather 
than otherwise. My condition moved her to pity, and 
she offered many words of compassion ; but, not less 
careful of her charge, she aspired as well to the appro- 
bation of the superiors, by pedantically executing their 
orders. Such an ungrateful duty I, in her case, would 
never have accepted. 

A little later they brought me a dish of broth ; but I 
refused it. The night which succeeded was the most 
anxious of my life. I arose frequently to renew my 
prayers to God to preserve my sanity. In the morning 
they brought me coffee. I sent it back untouched, as I 
did also the dinner which was sent to me. 

Two hours later, my baggage arrived. The priora 
gave me a letter from my sister, which she had already 
opened. How was I gratified to learn that Maria Giu- 
seppa, after the examination at the police office, had 
been consigned to her uncle in the country ! My sister 
added, that she had already written to my mother, who, 
on being informed of what had happened to me, said 
that she should not fail to demand an audience of the 
king. I felt utterly unable, mentally and physically, to 
write ; nevertheless, in a few lines, I informed her that 
for fear that I should address to the pope, or to the 
other authorities, some demand for release, all my let- 
ters were to be opened and read. It was necessary to 
be careful, therefore, what was written by either of us. 

The day following, the repulsive figure of the eccle- 



FOUR DAYS WITHOUT FOOD. 403 

siastical superiore appeared at the door. At the sight 
of him I felt my blood boil, and incapable of restrain- 
ing my wrath, I broke out in imprecations both against 
the cardinal and the king. A strange welcome to the 
public censor ! Don Pietro Calendrelli (such was his 
name) thought that he could impose silence on me, as 
he found himself able to do every day on the authors 
of grammars and dictionaries. He well knows whether 
he succeeded or not ! 

"I take as an insult," said I, "the visits of priests, 
censors, and inquisitors. Liberate me, then, from 
your presence, if you do not wish me to return insult 
for insult." 

"This unjust anger," he replied, "does not permit you 
to see that you outrage your benefactors. When you 
shall have calmed down from this state of irritation, His 
Eminence will visit you." 

I stepped back a little, and, pointing with my finger, 
said : — 

" Tell him not to dare to do it, for I have become a 
tiger." 

The priest turned to the priora, and exclaimed : — 

" She's certainly crazy. Let us go away." 

This exclamation of the priest startled me. "Am I, 
then, really crazy?" I asked myself. 

Meanwhile, four days had passed since I had taken 
any nourishment whatever. A long and languishing 
malady would not have produced a greater change in 



404 DOCTOR SABINI. 

my looks. My complexion had become like bronze, 
and the whites of my eyes were of the color of saffron. 
If I went to bed to escape from this horrid phantom, 
which persecuted me, I only had again before me the 
picture of the priest, Domenico, who was always in the 
act of sending me to the gibbet. In short, deprived 
of every glimmer of hope, infirm of body and mind, I 
every moment invoked either immediate death or resto- 
ration to liberty. 

At the sixth day, I had not sufficient strength left to 
rise from the bed ; still I would not take the remedies 
which the priora recommended. 

On the following day, the physician was sent for. 
He was a certain Doctor Sabini, a good man, and as I 
afterwards discovered, one who nourished a generous 
love for his country. He listened to the priora's ac- 
count of my illness, and that included, of course, my 
refusal to take any nourishment whatever. 

"So much the better," he observed ; "fasting is rather 
beneficial, than otherwise, to her health. As soon as 
the fever passes, we will force her to take food." 

He called for the inkstand, to write a prescription ; 
but I held him by the hand to prevent him. 

"You will only waste your time," I said. "I am 
firmly resolved to take no remedies whatever. You 
are, however, welcome, if you come as a friend ; but 
if you only come to aid me professionally, you will 
oblige me by leaving me instantly." 



EXAMINATION OF MY TRUNKS. 405 

I had not concluded, when the head of the ecclesias- 
tical superioi-e appeared at the door. 

" Signor Sabini," he said, without passing the thresh- 
old, "the cardinal wishes to know from jou the condi- 
tion of the patient." 

The sonud of his disagreeable voice threw me into a 
fury, and I cried, as loud as I could : — 

" Get away from here, paj)asso mascherato / ^' 

" Calm yourself, for pity's sake ! " said the physician 
to me. " Signor Cavaliero," he added, turning to the 
priest, " the patient is suffering from a nervous bilious 
fever, complicated with some symptoms of cerebral 
congestion. If she will take my prescriptions, and, 
above all, if she will renounce all thought of taking her 
own life by starvation, I think we shall get the better of 
the disease." 

After these words, the priest entered the room and 
began to examine it carefully in every point. 

" How is this ! " he exclaimed ; " how is this ! Does she 
design to take her life ! Signora Superiora," he added, 
in a hoarse and imperious tone ; " take away from this 
room, at once, everything which she might possibly 
use to destroy herself." 

The regal censor discovered my trunks and looked at 
the books they contained, which were, in his opinion, 
more dangerous than arsenic, — dangerous to something 
far more important than my life ! 

In order to avoid a conflict, which I knew must take 



406 EXAMINATION OF MY TEUNKS. 

place if I remained iu the room, I went to another 
whilst the priora and the priest, assisted by other per- 
sons, examined my trunks. They began with the room, 
which was examined in every hole, large and small; 
they took possession of my keys in the hope of finding 
something relative to secret societies ; opened trunks ; 
felt in the pockets of sacks ; opened caskets, and pushed 
the examination even to my linen ! The only objects 
which attracted their attention were several volumes of 
foreign publications, among which, I remember Ozanam 
on Dante, and a work on Education, by Tomassdo ; the 
sacred hymns of Manzoni, and a poem on Liberty, by 
Dionysius Salomos, an eminent poet of modern Greece. 
They disguised the hatefuluess of making this capture 
by the sequestration of knives, forks, scissors, penknife, 
and other similar things ! 

The enemy of the word eziandio was just ready to go 
downstairs, when I re-entered my own room. Turning 
to me, with a simper, into which all his innate bitter- 
ness was thrown, he said : — 

" With your good permission, I will report to His 
Eminence, your and my benefactor, that I have taken 
away every means by which you might be able to de- 
stroy yourself;" and saying this, he went downstairs. 

A very dangerous bundle of papers, however, had 
escaped their notice during their examination. I was 
sure, however, that the hand of man, unless he was an 



GOOD NEWS. 407 

expert, would not discover the hiding-place in which 
they were secreted. But of this another time. 

Doctor Sabini came every morning, early, to see me. 
The natural strength of my constitution enabled me to 
triumph in this desperate moral and physical struggle, 
in which most women would have been obliged to suc- 
cumb. Nevertheless I persisted in abstaining from food, 
and the physician perceived that, from this cause alone, 
my strength was failing from day to day, rapidly. 

The morning of the eleventh day found me in a state 
of great depression. I could not lift my fleshless arm, 
and, in attempting to raise my head from the pillow, I 
fainted. So far had this emaciation gone, that I was no 
longer able to get out of my bed, and could not, as I had 
been accustomed, lock the door of the entrance to this 
den. 

The physician, in order to save me, conceived a com- 
passionate expedient. 

The governor of this ritiro was a Caracciolo, Prince 
of Cellamare ; he was also a physician. More than once 
he told me that he had had a conversation with the gov- 
ernor about me. One morning, laughing and rubbing 
his hands, he said : — 

" Cheer up, signorina, I bring you good news ! Yes- 
terday evening the prince recommended your case very 
warmly fb the authorities, who have condescended that 
you may leave this place as soon as you are convalescent." 



408 I TAKE FOOD AGAIN. 

My heart began to beat so furiously that I do not 
know why I did not faint. 

" Shall I then be released ? " I inquired, almost gasping 
for breath, and extending my hand. 

" Certainly," he replied ; " but it is necessary for jou 
first to regain your strength, for I do not wish you to go 
•out from here looking wildly enough to frighten the 
people. Quick, signora priora, bring her some broth ! " 

A moment after, the conversa brought me a little, of 
which the doctor made me take several spoonfuls, sup- 
porting me himself with his arm with true paternal kind- 
ness. At the third spoonful my sight was obscured, and, 
befoie I could get down upon the pillow again, I threw 
up the soup, thin as it was. 

" We will leave her now in peace," said the doctor, 
"she is too much debilitated. I will now write a pre- 
scription for a cahnante, which must be administered 
every half hour." 

I was left then to myself to take my soup as I might 
feel able to do it ; but far more than the broth, or the 
prescription, did the words of the doctor reanimate me. 
The following day I was better. I continued to be 
afflicted with apparitions, the effect of mental disorder; 
but hope, the supreme specific, what comfort will it not 
bring to a heart rendered desperate by its troubles ! 
After four days the melioration of my condition was 
great ; in the sixth, the doctor inquired for me only at 
the parlatorio, but did not come up to my room. At 



I 



COMPASSIONATELY DECEIVED. 409 

the end of the week I began by degrees to take more 
substantial food ; but, meanwhile, the doctor did not 
show himself any more in my room. I made some com- 
plaints of his neglect to the priora, and he was called 
again. 

He came finally. After he had inquired about my 
health, I demanded to know the day in which I should 
be permitted to go out. He answered me evasively ; 
did not destroy all my hope, but said he could not tell 
me the precise time when. . . . Alas ! I now began to 
realize the bitter certainty that I had been compassion- 
ately deceived. 

I cried then as no woman ever cried before, and gave 
m3^self up anew to the most uncontrollable desperation. 
I did not know what extreme means to adopt ; but I had 
not the courage to attempt to cut short my days -again 
by starvation. 

In the mean while my mother returned from Gaeta. 
On being informed by my sister that my letters were 
subjected to an inquisition in the parlatorid, similar to 
that to which all the public correspondence through the 
different post-offices in the kingdom was submitted, she 
gave me an account of her operations in terms unintelli- 
gible to others. She had failed to accomplish anything ; 
but well knowing her haughty and resolute character, 
could I believe, after such an effort, that she would stand 
with folded hands ? 

35 



410 INGENIOUS SUBTERFUGE. 

In one of my lucid intervals (which were now occur- 
ring more frequently) , I conceived an ingenious subter- 
fuge. I asked the priora how my washing was to be 
done, and was answered that her converse had no time 
to do it. I therefore made up a bundle of clothes t^ 
send to my mother's house to be washed, and in the 
corner of a pocket-handkerchief I placed a note, in which 
I asked her for a more particular account of what she 
had attempted for me. 

The clothes were returned to me after a few days and 
I found the answer enclosed in the same manner. 

My mother wrote that she had spoken with the king 
and even with the queen ; that they had both told her 
that she should go to the archbishop, rather than apply 
to them ; that it was not their custom to mix themselves 
up with the affairs of the church. They said, besides, 
that playing the organ and singing the vespers was a 
more appropriate occupation for a nun, than to be con- 
spiring in the open air with the enemies of the throne 
and the altar ! 

No doubt now remained ; not one power alone, but 
two, had laid their hands upon me,^ — the police and the 
archbishop. To tell the truth, the suspicions of the 
Bourbonic police were well founded. Naturally posr- 
sessed of strong passions, a mobile imagination, and a 
will strong enough to struggle against the seductions of 
sentiment, as well as against the current of habit, I had 
looked for the reintegration of liberty in my native laud, 



I 



PATRIOTISM. 411 

even before I had thoroughly instructed m^^self in the 
subject, by the study of Eoman history and the annals 
of our own republics. Books, journals, and the society 
of men of vigorous thought, and, above all, the example 
of other nations further advanced in the career of civili- 
zation than ours, caused the sacred fire of love of country 
to burn in my bosom. From this time forth, I exe- 
crated the imperial eagle and the princes who w^ere its 
satellites, the depravation of the priesthood, and the 
cringing court intrigues of our nobles, with that inexo- 
rable hate with which the Saracens were detested by the 
Spaniards, and the Turks by the Greeks, the Russians 
by the Poles, and the Barbary pirates by all the Christian 
nations of the world ! 

Ambitious as I was to contribute my feeble aid to so 
noble a mission, I did not cease to seek, under the 
shadow of a nun's cowl, that hidden centre of operations 
where my industry might be put to exercise. I knocked 
a long time before I obtained an answer ; but the door 
was.finally opened to me. There were moments of ex- 
ultation to me, and of enthusiasm, in which I had the 
arrogance to believe that if all the women should think and 
feel as I did, no barbarian host would ever be able again 
to fall upon Italy, or, at least, her soil would no longer 
bear the marks of the devastating tracks of tyrants ! 

The suspicions of the police, therefore, were not 
without a foundation ; but who could have put them 
upon my tracks ? I do not know, nor is it important 



412 EEVOLUTIOXARY PAPEES, ETC. 

now to know. However it may be, I now lost all hope 
of ever seeing the light of day again. 

To this source of discomfort, another still more irri- 
tating was added. Having refused to obey the orders 
of the curia, repeatedly sent to me, to reassumc the 
monastical habit, I now received peremptory orders to 
put it on within three days, under the alternative of 
seeing myself confined in another ritiro in the provinces, 
and of passing the remainder of my life in entire sep- 
aration from my relatives and from the world ! 

I was compelled, therefore, again to put on this hate- 
ful badge of inertia, of ignorance, of egotism, raised to 
the dignity of doctrine ! To fall, forever, and without 
hope, under the rod of an ignorant and fanatical abbess ! 
To be buried in the corruption of a cloister, where the 
voice of one's oavu heart, or reason, can never enter ! 
From this horrible idea my poor mind, already disor- 
dered, received its last shock. 

I have already said, that in a convenient hiding-place 
in my trunk, something had escaped the inquisitions of 
the XDriests. This parcel contained a bundle of revolu- 
tionary papers, in cipher, a dagger, and a pistol, — things 
belonging to my brother-in-law, and by him given to 
me in deposit at the time I was in the Conservatorio di 
Costantinopoli. 

It was the night of July 16, an hour before midnight. 
After having knelt at the foot of my bed and oflered 
the prayer for the dying to the God of mercy, I wrote 



LETTER TO MY MOTHER. 413 

the following letter to my mother, — a letter palpitatuig 
with affectioD and bathed in tears. 
I said to her : — 

"To the enormity of my pmiishmeut, no one will lend 
his faith who has not suffered in a similar manner. To 
exist, and to believe one's self to be dreaming, this 
perpetual straining to surmount the breaker which surges 
against you and waits to swallow you, with no hope 
whatever of ever gaining the shore ; this being buried 
alive and awaking in the darkness of the coffin ! — ah, 
mother, believe me, these are insupportable aiilictions. 

"Dear mother, this life which you gave me has been 
noue other than one of torture. Of what value is exist- 
ence, if it is blind to liberty and to conscience, — if it 
is condemned to atrophy, whilst God's other creatures 
breathe their native element, free and healthy as the 
birds of the air? Be, therefore, the first to pardon me, 
and defend my memory, when the only .trace which will 
be left of me to the world will be your commiseration ! " 

I finished the letter, and, drawing the dagger from its 
hiding-place, I plunged it into my side .... 

Do not condemn me, reader, — rather pity me. Re- 
tracing mentally all my sufferings, place yourself in my 
miserable state, and weep with me, who, while writing 
of these horrible moments, find myself profoundly ex- 
cited. Ah, yes ! I had suffered, and suffered until the 

35* 



414 ATTEMPT AT SUICIDE. 

lamp of reason was fully spent ! Pardon me, as I hope 
to receive the pardon of God ! 

My pulse, weak and trembling, gave slight force to 
the blow. A whalebone in my dress had obstructed the 
passage of the steel, which, sliding off, inflicted only a 
slight flesh-wound. 

I should, perhaps, have renewed the blow, but the 
horror and the chill, which the cold blade of the dagger 
gave me, aroused me from the delirium. The instinct 
of self-preservation, is it not a part of the divine law? 
That internal monitor, which cries out to the desperate, 
" Save thyself ! " is it not the voice of the protecting 
angel who is sent from heaven ? 

The steel fell from my hands, and I seated myself, 
trembling, upon a chair. It was not written that I 
should die by my own hands in a fit of madness ! I 
lived, I cried, I sufiered still, and, praise be to divine 
Providence, I outlived this period of ignominy and ser- 
vitude ! But new torments awaited me ! 

The priests, not content with forcing me to reassume 
the cowl, determined that I should have for a confessor 
a religioso of their faith. Father Quaranta, an Agostiui- 
ano. Kegaixling my soul as one alread}^ consigned to 
perdition, whose conversion would not fail to be ascribed 
to a miracle, they had selected this religioso as one who, 
already celebrated for his wonderful eloquence, and in 
the odor of sanctit}^ would be easily able to vanquish 
any resistance on my part. I resolved, however, not to 



II 



SELECTION OF A CONPESSOE. 415 

go to the confessional. Quaranto was , therefore , brought 
to my room every day, in spite of my protestations. 
He was a, poor old piece of stupidity, going under full 
sail to imbecility, who, too much occupied with the 
paltriest inanities, recited everything on the same key 
and like a musical snuff-box, and forgot, from one mo- 
ment to another, my objections. 

The prattle of this childish old fool destroyed the 
beneficial effects of the last crisis in my reason. I pro- 
tested anew against the daily annoyance ; but I was 
answered that the daily catechism of the confession was 
necessary to the salvation of my soul ; at the same 
time, if I preferred to change, they offered to provide 
me with another confessor, a certain Cutillo, who 
enjoyed a similar reputation in Naples to that of 
Quaranta. 

" If you like him so much, take him for yourself," I 
replied to the priest superiore. "If I must confess, I 
prefer a person of my own selection, not of yours." 

The priora had spoken to me of an old canonico of 
the neighborhood, who came often to say the mass in 
the church of the ritoro, and repeatedly inquired after 
my health, and of my moral state, and urged the priora 
to pay every attention to me in my misfortunes. 

I knew him by reputation for a man learned, prudent, 
and of spotless probity. I asked the priora to call him 
to confess me. He sent a reply that he would accept 
the incumbency, provided that I did not intend to avail 



416 SELECTION OF A CONFESSOR. 

myself of his mediation with the head of the Neapolitan 
church. 

I gave him to understand that I was veryrfar from 
humiliating myself after that fashion, and he came. 
But the selection of this worthy prelate was disapproved 
by His Eminence not less than by the ecclesiastical 
superiore of the establishment. And the reason was 
this, — the canonico was a Christian at heart and in 
conscience, and not from party spirit or from pride. 
He was a minister in the service of suffering humanity, 
and not the instrument of a ferocious caste. They, on 
the contrary, were far beneath him in moral character, 
in ability, and in doctrine. It followed, then, as a 
matter of course, that the sentiments of the subaltern, 
being diametrically opposed to that of the superiors, 
their attempts to reach the mind of the penitent by 
means of the confessor would be vain. 

Notwithstanding, ashamed of themselves for having 
shown a disapproval of a confessor, which they could 
not justify, they were, a little later, constrained to re- 
voke it, and in consequence, in the sincere comforts 
proffered to me bj^ this good old man, I had the consol- 
ing proof that Heaven had not altogether withdrawn its 
clemency from me. 

But I repeat it, misfortunes never come singly. 
General Salluzzi, who on so many occasions had given 
me proofs of his paternal affection, was, after these last 



MY SEQUESTRATION. 417 

events, so severely rebuked for the protection he had 
afforded to a poor nun, conspiring against the govern- 
ment and in rebellion to the church, tliat he dared no 
longer to call himself my friend. Besides this loss, 
which occasioned me no little mortification, the king 
suspended an annual assignment of sixty ducats in my 
favor, the last and only resource at that time left to me. 
From this time forth, notwithstanding the assistance 
received from my family, my sufferings for the want of 
means were many. Obliged to do everything for my- 
self, although not accustomed to it, I confined myself, 
for one entire summer, to bread alone, with a little 
fruit, eating meat only on Sundays. 

As to my sequestration, it was completed in the first 
six months. With the exception of the physician who 
visited me at first, I had not seen, from the time of my 
incarceration, any other human figure, except the dis- 
agreeable ones of the priests, monks, and nuns, and this 
constrained me to be contented to imprison myself in 
my own room, and to reduce myself to a state of com- 
plete isolation. One thread of communication with the 
outside world cnly was yet left to me, and that was the 
as yet unsuspected mail-bag, which continued its weekly 
journey back and forth, a precious and confiding messen- 
ger, which enabled me to keep up a regular correspond- 
ence with my mother. 

By the aid of a few choice and well-selected books, 
what annoyances might not even here be forgotten? 



418 MY SEQUESTRATION. 

what sadness dissipated ! and how would not the dark- ™ 
ness and silence of my cell be reanimated ! Deprived 
of this harmless alleviation, I was obliged to recur to 
the books furnished by the ritiro. Nor do I regret hav- 
ing accepted them. I remember, especially, the Vita 
delle Sante Martiri, which I found there, — an interesting 
book which I have read and re-read many times with 
edification and great delight. The chaste poesy, the 
pure and holy zeal of that Christian era, served me as a 
calmaute in the internal struggles which agitated me. 

Admirable age of redemption, in Avhich women of 
ardent faith, of hope, of sublime charity, not only dis- 
puted with man the privilege of heroism, but also the 
sacrifice of youth, of beauty, of property, and of life 
itself! With the practice of every virtue they were 
enabled to eclipse the modesty of hierarchs, the doc- 
trines of the schools, and the lucubrations of theology. 
Who can deny that one of the most marvellous prodigies 
of Christianity might not be this new devotion of woman 
to the reform of societj-, to the renovation of the human 
race ? And this faith, which draws her forth from the 
gymnasium, in order to sacrifice herself upon the funereal 
pile, is it not worthy of admiration beyond that of the 
heroism with which the names of Epamiuondas and of 
Scipio are celebrated in the pages of Plutarch? 

These, and no other examples, I should like to be able 
to keep before the eyes of our young Avomen continually. 
What might not she dare do, what would she not accom- 



MY SEQUESTRATION. 419 

plidh, even the woman of to-day, if, taking this faith for 
her model, she should depose the flower of her affections 
on the altar of her country, as an offering of first-fruits? 
Instead of writing romances which enervate the heart, 
depress the spirits, and paral^'ze the aspirations, I would 
rather attempt to retemper the heart, if I could, to fruit- 
ful conceits and to robust sentiments. This would be 
my method to aid her to rise again from the inertia iu 
which she now lies, and to prepare her to take her place 
among the workers in the great drama of civilization. 
In my hours of idleness (and how many must I not 
have passed: iu more than three years of absolute seques- 
tration), the little insects, my only living companions in 
the desert, afforded me most grateful diversion ! How 
many hours did I not pass absorbed in listening to the 
isochronal sound of the nibbling of the wood-worm in 
the decaying woodwork of the door and the roof! How 
many times have I stretched my ears to hear the war- 
bling of a little canary-bird in the vicinity, whose prison 
I was unable to discover, but whose patience and whose 
surprising joyousness I envied from the bottom of my 
heart ! In the summer and autumn, a portion of my 
very small supply of bread was religiously reserved for 
the ants. Enticed by my hospitality, they crowded, in 
different republics and under different chiefs, into my 
room, took undisturbed possession of it, coming in and 
going out at their pleasure, or mounted the walls in 
numerous legions, or in divers tribes gathered around 



420 VISIT FROM THE NUNCIO. 

me and struggled with each other for the possession of 
the few crumbs which I fed to them. Another time I 
amused myself as did Silvio Pellico, in contemplating 
the struggles of a poor fly which fell into the claws of a 
spider, reminding me of the maxim of Anacharsis : — 
"The justice of the king is a spider's web, in which the 
small insects become entangled and are captured ; the 
large ones break through its meshes and take themselves 
off." 

In the winter season, what aided me more than any- 
thing else to get through the long and sleepless nights, 
was the exercise of mnemotechny. By dint of mental 
practice at multiplication of determinate numbers, I be- 
came at last so skilful that I could easily find the product 
of two factors, each composed of five figures ! 

But let us resume the thread of our story. 

Our clandestine correspondence had now been a long 
time regularly carried on, when one day I found in the 
usual place, a despatch to the following effect ; — 

" Try and obtain a meeting with the apostolic nuncio ; 
he is a good man. You can write to him, and enclose 
your letter to me." 

The meeting was demanded and very soon obtained. 
The nuncio came to Mondragone immediately on receiv- 
ing my letter. At the announcement of a visit from so 
eminent a functionary from the Holy See, the ritiro was 
in uproar. The priora, arrogating to herself the honor 



I 



VISIT FROM THE NUXCIO. 421 

of the visit, ran in haste to the parlatorio. Bat what was 
her surprise to learn, that the minister of His Holiness 
came to see her prisoner ! In the uncertainty whether 
she ought to permit me to come clown to the parlatorio, 
or to adhere to her instructions to the letter, the poor 
woman was petrified, and knew not what answer to give 
to the nuncio. I, who was in expectation of this visit, 
hearing an unusual noise in the corridor, went out 
hurriedly from my roofn, and, as quickly as possible, 
descended the stairs, crowded by the nuns, who stood 
looking at me v/ith amazement. I threw myself into the 
parlatorio, and in a haughty tone said to the priora : — 

"Your duties call you elsewhere ; leave me alone here, 
I pray you ! " 

In confusion she took her leave of the nuncio, calling 
him Signor Dottore, and turning her back, she said, in 
a low tone : — 

" I wonder if she is crazy again ! " 

The nuncio was a man in the flower of his years and 
very prepossessing in his manners. He was greatly 
astonished at the account of my " Odj^ssey ; " but not 
having any direct jurisdiction over the ritiro, he ex- 
pressed his great regret that he Tvas not able to offer me 
that aid which my condition demanded. But, notwith- 
standing this, he assured me, on leaving, that he would 
use ever}^ possible means in his power to obtain in my 
favor, if not an immediate release, at least some dimi- 
nution of the rigors Avhich were being visited upon me. 
36 



422 ARGUMENT AVITH THE SUPERIOR. 

In ascending the stairs, I saw the priora and her nuns 
assembled in consultation, much dismayed. As I ap- 
proached the crowd, I said to my jailer, smiling : — 

"You need not give yourself any uneasiness about 
my future ; you can send word to the cardinal that I 
have broken the arrest myself." 

This air of decision was nothing new to the priora, or 
her nuns. I had for some time been in the habit of 
ridiculing them, and of angering them by every sort of 
malicious spite, remembering the words of that girl at 
Capua : '' / am saucy in order to secure a husband! " 

The priora told the priest-superior of the infraction of 
the orders on my part, and he came to my room speed- 
ily, snorting fire and flame. I received him without 
rising, and laughing. He, looking askance, said : — 

" How have you dared to go down to the parlatorio, 
notwithstanding the peremptory orders of the cardinal?" 

'' Ardire (to dare) rhymes with dormire (to sleep)," 
I replied. 

" Malmggia! do you know, that, having once taken 
the vows, you must lend blind obedience to the superiors 
whom God has given you ? " 

"In which of the evangelists is it written that our 
Lord ever gave me for my superior the reverend cava- 
lier Don Pictro Calendrelli ? " 

" I am your superior, in the name of the Holy Catholic 
church ! " 

" What do you mean by the Catholic church ? " 



ARGUMENT WITH THE SUPERIOR. 423 

"I mean, signora mia, the mistress of the king; the 
representative of God upon the earth ; the Holy Father ; 
and the entire Catholic world, which obeys her." 

" With your good permission, I do not believe in the 
Holy See." 

" Then you are not a CatholK; ! " 

" If that which you call Catholicism, in the hands of 
the pope, of the cardinals, bishops, and priests, is only a 
trade, a machine for propagating ignorance and slavery, 
assuredly I would not be a Catholic." 

'' What then would you be ? " 

"A Christian, simply; by which I should gain 
largely." 

" Oh, horrible ! horrible ! " he cried ; " would you then 
be a Protestant ? " 

" A schismatic ! " added the priora, who had entered 
the room. 

"Neither the one nor the other," I replied. "I would 
be a Christian of that sect which most favors the civiliza- 
tion, well-being, and the liberty of the people. Behold 
my creed, which will also be the faith of future genera- 
tions ! " 

"You are an impious and sacrilegious religiosa. Sig- 
nora Priora, I recommend you to take good care that 
the contagion of such satanical opinions does not infect 
the innocent minds of the young girls of this ritoro ! " 

" Do not be uneasy," I replied ; " some years hence 



424 CONFLICT WITH THE SUPERIORE. 

these girls will discover and detect your impostures, 
as I do." 

Very far were they, however, from such a point. 
The ritiro was occupied almost exclusively by young 
girls, who, in consequence of the bigotry of the 
superiors, and the absence of good instruction, hardly 
knew how to Avrite their ovtUi names ; and how could 
it be otherwise while Calendrelli was the colleague of 
the renowned Monsignore Francesco Apuzzo? These 
girls, every time they passed my door, sighed, ex- 
claiming : — 

"Madonna della Grazia, save her soul! My God 
convert her ! " 

The superiore now set himself to work to discover 
by what means I had contrived to get a letter to the 
nuncio. One by one all the converse in the establish- 
ment were interrogated ; but they knew nothing. He 
began finally to suspect that it must be by means of my 
basket of clothes going to be washed, and, not having 
any scruples about doing it, he ordered the priora to no- 
tify him when my clothes were next sent to be washed ; 
and so, when this happened, the cavalier of the order 
of Francesco I., getting down on his knees over a 
bundle of a woman's dirty linen, had the impudence to 
undo the bundle with his own hands, and shako out 
every piece, without exception ! But having antici- 
pated this very thing I had set a trap for him. Folded 



MY CLOTHES EXAMINED. 425 

up in one corner of a towel the reverend found a letter 
directed to my mother. Getting upon his feet in a 
great glee, and with a hand trembling with impatience, 
he opened it. 

" We have caught the mouse at last," said the priora ; 
and withont giving himself time to think he began to 
read it aloud. At the fourth line he turned pale. 
When he had only half finished the reading his voice 
died out between his teeth, and he concluded it entirely 
to himself. 

In that letter I had said everything I could think of 
about him. I had called him impudent ; a drunkard ; 
a seducer; a clown; and I said, among other things, 
that every afternoon it was his custom to call, now 
one, and now another of the young educaude to 
his own room, keeping them there with him a long 
time alone, under the pretence of assisting him to 
recite the evening prayers ; and this was literally 
true. The letter terminated with the following epi- 
gram : — 

" Vuol ragazze, rUziandio, 
Non e prete, anch' ei, per Dio ? 
Prete, o frate, tanto basta, 
Sono tutti d'una pasta." 

I beg the reader's pardon for this escapade. I was 
desirous to cut it out ; but in memoirs one is not com- 

36* 



426 FURTHER APPLICATION TO THE POPE. 



pelled, as in writing history, to suppress the comic 
side of the picture. 

He tore the letter to pieces in a great furj ; and the 
day following, the priora came to tell me that His 
Eminence had been pleased, through the intervention 
of the nuncio, to allow me to participate in the effects of 
his inexhaustible compassion ! by kindly permitting me 
to descend to the parlatorio at will, and to send my 
letters to my mother in future, under seal, by means of 
our servant. 

Meanwhile my worthy confessor did not fail to visit 
me two or three times a week. I confessed to him, or, 
to say better, argued with him a long time about the 
degree of respect the present was bound to concede to 
the authority of the past. He contended, among other 
things, that I should not only forget the offences of my 
enemies, but that I should love them, besides, with 
sincerity ; and, as it was no longer in my power to leap 
the abyss which separated me from monasticism, he re- 
fused any longer to accord me either absolution or the 
communion. 

I determined about this time upon making one more 
attempt at Rome ; and this friend, who did all he could 
to humanize me, charged himself with the duty of 
transmitting my petition. Obtaining this promise, I 
prepared a new petition, in which I demanded, in direct 
terms of the pope, one of two things : either seculariza- 



I 



ANOTHER DENIAL. 427 

tion, or the permission to come to Eome myself to lay 
my reasons before him in my own proper person. 

I received no answer until after many months of ex- 
pectation. And w^hat an answer ! The Holy Father 
neither granted me the permission to come to Eome 
nor secularization. Nevertheless, he condescended that 
for the future I might be dispensed from the clausura. 

This concession, at least, gave me the hope of being 
able to go out again, as I used to, from the Conserva- 
torio di Costantinopoli. I sent to the cardinal to 
demand on what day I might be permitted to go out for 
the morning from the ritiro. 

"I cannot permit it," he replied. "A ritiro for 
others ; but the clausura for her ! " 

At this answer I knew not how to contain myself. 
Two years and a half had gone by since the time of 
my ingress into that wilderness. 

Then the idea of flight came into my head ; and I 
debated whether I should look to England or America 
for refuge. In either the one or the other of these free 
countries I should find brothers and companions in 
exile ; but my inclinations were rather in favor of that 
one in which repose the mortal remains of Foscolo, 

The portress was accustomed to go downstairs early 
in the morning to open the outside door, and, in re- 
turning, she closed the door above, so that the stairs 
were deserted at that time. Half way down were the 
doors of the parlatorio. It was my plan to descend 



428 CONTEMPLATE FLIGHT. 

behind the portress without showing myself, and whilst 
she would be opening the door I would hide myself in 
tlie parlatorio, having taken care before daylight to lay 
on the rack, which stands inside, a hat, with a thiclt veil, 
and shawl. When the portress had gone back, and I 
had got outside myself, I intended to throw off the 
nun's dress, which I should have put on over a secular 
dress, and thus, with the hat and the shawl, I should 
have completed my disguise. A lady of my ac- 
quaintance would be expecting me in a neighboring 
street, and from the Piazzo del Vasto a carriage would 
have taken me to the Molo, and then I would forth- 
with embark on an English ship, which would be found 
in the harbor. My project, easy to execute, was 
known only to the above-mentioned woman, who, after 
accompanjnng me on board the vessel, would have 
carried a letter to my mother. 

Judging my honest confessor to be incapable of be- 
traying a secret, I thought best to impart to him my ! 
resolution to the end, that after the flight he might be 
able to protect himself from the rage of the cardinal. 
He was not satisfied with my project, and objected to 
it, as very imprudent and unnecessarily hazardous. 'm\ 

"No," said he ; "you, who are a woman, and still 
young, and a nun as well, ought not to expatriate your- 
self to countries far away, without any means of sub- 
sistence after y, u get there ; without any guide or pro- 
tection. Your enemies would rejoice over it. Ee- 



DISSUADED BY IMY CONFESSOK. 429 

main, figlia mia, aud listen to the counsels of an old 
man, who feels the greatest interest in you." 

These reasons were not without their effect upon me, 
for they came from a sacerdote who was highly re- 
spected for his wisdom, as well as his rare probity. 

" But, father," I replied, " do you reflect that you are 
speaking to a moribund, who only lacks now the ex- 
treme unction ? Did I say a moribund ? I should say, 
rather, a corpse ! " 

"Any other means of escape you may attempt; this, 
no." 

"And what other, then?" 

" Why not despatch one of your relatives to Rome ? 
Possibly such an agency might accomplish something." 

Discouraged from my first design, I did not feel war- 
ranted in rejecting this new one, inasmuch as if this 
should fail, the escape by flight would be always open 
to me. But to whom among my relatives could I con- 
fide the duty of going to Rome on this mission ? And 
then the expense ? For that I trusted in Providence to 
provide. 

By dint of much thought, I remembered a maternal 
aunt, educated in Bologna, who, endowed with singular 
assiduity, would, better than any one else, be able to 
undertake this charge. My aunt willingly accepted this 
incumbency, and my mother aud my sisters contributed 
the necessary amount of money. I gave her the orig- 
inals of all the mandates I had till now obtained, 



430 MEDICAL CEETIFICATE. 

together with a certificate of two physicians of the 
community of Mondragone, a certificate which, with 
the reader's permission, I will transcribe here entire, in 
order that my physical and moral condition, at that 
time, may be well understood. 

"In June, 1851, the undersigned received an invita- 
tion, from the Royale Ritiro di Madragone, to visit the 
noble claustrale, Signora D. Eurichetta Caracciolo di 
Forino, who was suffering with a nervous affection. 
We observed her then attentively, and watched her case 
with every possible diligence, collecting all the neces- 
sary information as to how, and when, the convulsive 
symptoms commenced and succeeded. Continuing our 
visits to the above-named religiosa, we observed that 
the nervous perturbations had for their centre the cere- 
bral region. In fact, there :i|)p cared in the head, at 
first, a severe pain ; this was succeeded by a chill, 
which pervaded the entire organism, and produced a 
general tremor ; then painful cramps followed, not only 
in the superior extremities, but even in the interior, 
and often m^er the whole body, which was sometimes 
contorted into a thousand difierent shapes, and the 
strength of two robust persons was often required to 
hold her during these spasms. One morning, while at- 
tending upon the patient, she was suddenly assailed by 
her chronic convulsions. They were so severe and so 
much prolonged that we entertained fears for her life. 



I 



MEDICAL CEKTiriCATE. 431 

Her pulse became ftiint, her heart ceased to beat, and over 
the surface of the body there was a deathly pallor, a 
general chill, and a cold perspiration, and, finally, deg- 
lutition was entirely impeded. 

" The signora priora and the other religiose were often 
present on these occasions. The convulsions would 
last for three or four hours, then would slowly disap- 
pear to give place to delirium and violent contortions 
of the body, to such an extent that the sufferer might be 
said to be fairly seized with mental aberration ; then 
would succeed a species of ecstasy, and sometimes the 
phenomenon of catalepsy. It was just at the termina- 
tion of one of these attacks that the patient once 
attempted her own life, by endeavoring to plunge a 
dagger into her side, which, by good fortune, she did 
not have sufficient strength to accomplish. 

" These sad attacks were repeated often, and always 
with the same symptoms here described ; from which we 
were led to believe that other than physical causes, — 
that some moral causes, even, — had contributed to 
produce and keep up this morbid state. And we there- 
fore demanded of the patient herself what were the 
reasons for her uncontrollable agitation, and she con- 
fessed to us that for a long time her mind had been 
violently disturbed, because she was compelled to be 
confined as a recluse in the cloister, which was abhor- 
rent to her. 

" We employed for this malady not only such reme- 



432 MEDICAL CERTIFICATE. 

dies as were already familiar to us, but resorted to the 
experience of other celebrated professors, and, in fact, 
whatever the science of the healing art could suggest, 
we have employed; but always to no purpose, — the 
patient was generally worse on account of the treatment. 

"Now, in order that the above-mentioned religiosa 
should not fall into a still worse condition, — that is, 
into a state of absolute insanity, — we are of opinion, 
after consultation w^ith our colleagues, that she ought to 
abandon the claustrale regime, — a regime which cssen 
tially influences and contributes to her diseased state. 

"This, our declaration, conscientiously sworn to, the 
result of about twenty months' observation of her case, 
is only too brief, and does not pretend, minutely, to 
describe all the sufferings of the patient. 

" II medico consultaute del luogo, 

" Dott. PlETRO SaBESTI. 

"II medico del luogo, 

"Dott. Alessandro Parisi. 
''JVaj)oU, 23 Gennaio, 1853." 



CHAPTER XXm. 

A BRIEr RESPITE. 

My aunt departs on her mission to Rome — Alarming illness of my mother — The 
cardinal refuses to allow me to go to see her on her death-bed — Success of my 
attempts in Rome — I determine to leave the diocese of Naples for that of 
Castellamare — The cardinal comes to see me — Interview — Correspondence 
with the Bishop of Castellamare — The cardinal's last kick I — Leave the ritiro 
for Castellamare. 

In the latter part of January my aunt went to Eome, 
and from her first letters I soon began to conceive new 
hopes. Things assumed a very favorable aspect. But 
who does not know the procrastinations of the Court 
of Eome, where in order to obtain a preliminary audi- 
ence, it sometimes is necessary to wait weeks and even 
months ! 

In March following, my mother fell seriously ill of 
bronchitis. Every day the news which I received from 
her was that she was getting worse. I was very anxious 
to see her, and conceiving myself to be exonerated from 
the rigors of the clausura, I hoped that, at least on this 
grave and "urgent occasion, I should not have any diffi- 
culty in obtaining the required permission. I made de- 
mand for such permission from the cardinal. 

" No ! " he replied with an imperial laconism. 

The Princess di Eipa called upon him to implore him 
37 433 



434 DEATH OF MY MOTHEK. 

to concede this act of humanity, which, not only a chief 
of a Christian church, but the most fanatical mufti of 
Constantinople should have hastened to grant. This 
kind lady told the cardinal that she would come for me 
in her own close carriage, and after I should have re- 
ceived my mother's last blessing, she would herself, on 
the same day, take me back again to Mondragone ; she 
prayed, she insisted, she supplicated, in terms which 
moved the bystanders to tears, and concluded by saying 
that tlie daughter, already suffering, would die with an- 
fijuish if she did not receive her mother's last blessing. 
His Eminence replied : — 

" Let her die then ; she shall never go out again." 
At the solicitation of the princess, the nuncio went 
to the cardinal on the following day and voluntarily 
offered to guarantee my return to the convent. Again 
His Eminence replied, "No." 

Finally my mother breathed her last, grieving at not 
being able to embrace, in her last moments, the most un- 
fortunate of all her children. I then wrote my aunt a 
letter, in which I recited all the circumstances relating to 
this affair, which she, clever and watchful, laid before 
several of the cardinals. The pathetic terms in which 
this letter was written made an impression t)u the sen- 
sibilities of these dignitaries, who, each in his turn, 
told her that the severity of Eiario had now become 
merely a personal matter. Shortly after this, the fore- 
going certificate of the physician was sent back from 



SUCCESS OF MY ATTEMPTS IN EOME. 435 

Eome to the archbishop, with the customary demand for 
his opinion. His answer was, as usual, in the negative ; 
but my boat seemed to be, at last, beginning to catch 
the breeze from the influence of persons at Rome flivor- 
able to me, and, it was enjoined upon him that he should 
himself select a physician in whom he had confidence to 
make another report. 

Riario, perceiving from the nature of this requisition 
that I had at last found influential friends at Rome, and 
it not seeming to him prudent any longer to oppose 
serious difficulties, shufiled and delayed ; but finally, 
put to the necessity, decided that the certificate must be 
signed also by the Professor Ramaglia, or Giardini. 

The former excused himself; the latter came. 

"Not one, alone, but a hundred certificates would I 
give, similar to the one already made," said he, after a 
minute and extended examination. "The inhumanity 
of which you are the victim would arouse the horror 
eveq of a barbarian. If my testimony can assist to pro- 
cure you relief from your sufierings, you may be cer- 
tain of having it speedily. The free and pure air is as 
necessary to you as bread. Where do you desire to go ? " 

He was sitting with the pen in his hand, ready to 
write. In order to escape from the diocese of Riario, I 
proposed the baths of Castellamare, and he approved my 
choice. The same day I sent the certificate to the car- 
dinal, who, not knowing what further opposition to 
make, was obliged to forward it to Rome, not, however, 



436 THE CAEDINAL VISITS ME. 

without taking care to accompany it with a letter, filled 
with poisonous doubts, and insinuations. 

The person who had taken upon herself the task of 
serving me at Rome was looking around for some pre- 
text for bringing the affair to a favorable conclusion, 
when, in reading this last letter of the cardinal, she noted 
a phrase which, on account of its ambiguity, served her 
purpose admirably. Eiario had written that he feared 
for my salute (health, or salvation, depending on the 
sense), meaning thereby, the condition of my soul ; but 
she adopted the first interpretation, which supposed that 
the cardinal had intended the health of the body ! 

God had decreed, finally, that my tribulations should 
come to an end, and that I should commence the period 
of rest, in the expectation of the triumph. Three days 
after I had sent the Breve to the cardinal, while I was 
working all alone in my hmnble room, there was a loud 
knocking at the door. A conversa called me to say : — ' 

"The cardinal has come and inquires for you ! Mak©| 
haste ! " 

I remembered then the many vexations, the brol 
promises, and the perfidies from which I had sufierec 
at his hands, and the sad scene of the arrest. I could 
have wished to get rid of him by discharging upon his 
head, with the congedo, the fulness of my resentment, 
but I said to myself : — 

"It is too soon yet ; with hypocrites we must finesse." 

I found him in the parlatorio. I had not seen him for 



INTERVIEW. 437 

four years ; he seemed older by ten. The convulsions 
which had agitated the church and state in Italy had 
furrowed his face with hieroglyphics, which indicated 
premature old age. Riario was not what he used to be ; 
he seemed to me to be only a shadow of himself. 

I approached without bending my knees to him, and 
seated myself without asking permission. 

" You remember the past and cannot leave off pout- 
ing" he said, with a forced smile. " I confess to having 
done wrong sometimes. I am only a man, — homo sum, 
— and every man is liable to make mistakes." 

After so many confessions, not to have taken the 
offered bait would have been a great folly. 

"Only," I replied, after a long silence, "only from 
the respect due to your sacred office, and because I be- 
lieve in your moral amendment, do I condescend to 
throw a veil over the past." 

" You are then irrevocably resolved to leave the clois- 
ter, to which you are bound by the most solemn vows ?" 

"I only obey the voice of God, who recalls me to 
life." 

" And you propose to pass from under my care and 
to transfer yourself to another diocese, I know. Pray 
do not do it, for Heaven's sake. You should not repudi- 
ate the house in which you were born ; the father who 
has instructed you and always sustained you ! Yes, 
you are my daughter. It is true that you have been 
sometimes severely treated, but you may be sure, that 
37* 



438 INTERVIEW. ^ 

from this day forward, I will use towards you all the 
kindness and charity of a loving father." 

This speech revealed to me the object of his visit ; he 
could not bear to pocket the affront, in the eyes of the 
world, of seeing me snatched from his jurisdiction. An 
adversary, if humiliated and repentant, awakes our 
compassion ; but reeking with hypocritical tenderness, 
he only inflames one's smothered ire. 

"Trust you!" I exclaimed, boldly; "trust to your 
promises ! Do you think I can believe the promises of 
one who keeps his word, as you did yours, to Father 
Spaccapietra relative to my arrest? " 

" When I promised that I would not have you ar- 
rested by the police and taken back to the clausura, 
you, my dear, had not done what you did subsequently. 
Who would ever have imagined that you would have 
aspired to secularization ; that you would have been 
seen in the public streets leaning upon the arms of 
liberals, whose names are inscribed on the black-book?" 

"I will wager, that if you should meet'me to-morrow 
on the Toledo, you would do the same thing again if 
you could." 

"Things have taken a different turn now. I could 
not do it, even if I would." 

" Say rather, as the wolf said to the lamb, that 'I have 
muddied the water where your elders used to slake their 
thirst.' Ah, cardinal, when, with the symbol of our 
redemption in your hand, you trampled upon an or- 



INTERVIEW. 439 

phaned and unarmed damsel, did you think of your last 
hour, or of the day of judgment ? " 

" Let us not speak of the past. I may have sinned 
against you from bad counsels, or from weakness ; but 
you certainly have not been faultless ; you who, under 
the veil of a nun, would traffic in the infamous plots of 
demagogues and republicans. But again I say, let us 
dispense with these mutual rancors. I promise to treat 
you henceforth with all possible kindness and charity. " 

"Eminenza, my acquaintance with you has been 
through a long and bitter experience. In the future, 
I will even kiss your hand, if you wish it ; but I will 
not give you the opportunity, in return, to regale me 
with a bite ! " 

That contemptible archetype of simulation would 
have quietly submitted, I believe, to any amount of 
outrages, if he could have thereby gained his end. He 
proposed to select^ another cloister for me, incomparably 
more comfortable than the present ; to accord me per- 
mission to go out every day ; and to procure and to 
provide me with a new and more liberal monthly allow- 
ance. 

I cut him short, however, saying : — 

"No, no, good father; better for you to be here and 
I there : each in his proper place. Let us determine 
clearly at this conference, which will be our last, the 
course we are severally to take. Bargains clear ; friend- 
ships long." 



440 INTERVIEW. 

"I shall come, from time to time, to see you, if you 
will permit it." 

"Do not dream of it," I said, in a firm tone; aud 
rising with the air of a queen, which might have re- 
minded one of Elizabeth of England, in the act of dis- 
missing the Archbishop of Canterbury, I said : — 

"Too long I have endured, too oppressive to me has 
been, your tutelage. I have been advised to call you to 
account for the past ; but I will not do it. It is time 
now, however, that, returning to your see in peace, you 
should take very different care for your own salvation 
than you have taken for the salvation of your pupil ! 
If you do not wish to be inculpated with inhumanity ; 
if, to the honor which is due to you, you think it neces- 
sary to retain my respect and that of the public ; return, 
monsignorc, return quickly to your see ; and in the 
future get rid of that mania for intrigue and great 
power, which, placing your reputation in peril, is de- 
stroying, from day to day, your authority !" 

The cardinal, discovering 'at last that to ensnare me 
again his net was already too old and too full of rents, 
took hold of the border of my scapulary, saying : — 

" One last word : I trust that at Castellamare you 
will live in a ritiro ? " 

"I shall do as my new bishop pleases." 

"And I trust, also, that you will continue to wear the 
black veil?" 

" The brown one is not yet finished ; I shall wear it." 



BISHOP OF CASTELLAMAEE. 441 

He arose then to go out, and, as he passed by them, 
all the nuns threw themselves upon their knees ; some 
for devotion touched the hem of his purple; others, 
with the extremities of their fingers, touched his hand, 
then kissed their own fingers ; and they all struggled to 
receive his first benediction ! 

He descended to the last stair, and turned around to 
give a parting benediction to the nuns. Eecognizing 
me in the front rank, he said : — 

"Recite an Ave Maria for me," blessing me distinctly. 

^"^ Requiem eternam ! " I replied. 

This prelate was at this time acquiring a singular 
popularity. It was during the prevalence of the chol- 
era, by which the capital was now fearfully afflicted, 
that he bestowed such care and tenderness on the sick, 
that our plebeians, who, more than any other class on 
our peninsula are given to the marvellous, pushed their 
admiration of his benevolence to that length as to attrib- 
ute to him the gift to work miracles. This charitable 
soul, this vessel of mercy, had the power, as they be- 
lieved, to cure the sick, and drive the disease from the 
house, by laying his right hand upon the heads of the 
sufierers ! 

I now opened a correspondence with the Bishop of 
Castellamare, and besought him not to require me to 
enter a convent. As to going out in the daytime, I 



442 LEAVE THE RITIKO. 

told him that a signora, a widow, who had been for 
eighteen years a ritiraia in Mondragone, had promised 
to accompany me always ; and the good bishop granted 
all my prayers. 

The last service left for the poor cardinal to grant 
me, was to prohibit my sisters from accompanying me. 
He wrote to the Bishop of Castellamare to send some 
one to Naples for me. This conduct of the cardinal 
seemed very capricious to the bishop, who said to my 
sisters, who went to Castellamare to see him : — 

" It is no matter ; you can wait for your sister at Gra- 
nilla, the boundary line of his diocese, and when she 
passes there, join her." 

On the fourth of November, 1854, after three years 
and four months in this cruel prison, I saw the light of 
day again. 

A nun of that class which is permitted to live out- 
side the convent, and who are called monache di casa, 
was sent to accompany me by the bishop ; neither the 
old lady who proposed to go with me, nor my sisters, 
being considered by Riario proper compagnons du voy- 
age for me. 

What happened next to disturb His Eminence? This 
same nun, who was also suffering from oppressed breath- 
ing, came for me, not in a close, but in an open car- 
riage ! Terrible infraction of the monastic rules ! 

At Resiua we met His Eminence. Our coachman 
raised his hat reverentially, and the cardinal lifted his 



LEAVE THE KITIRO. 443 

hand to bless me ; but, stupefied to see me sitting in 
an open carriage, which is prohibited to a cloistral nun, 
he remained with his hand suspended in the air, till 
long after we had passed each other. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

ESPIONAGE. 

The air of freedom —The peasant boy and his caged birds — Lay aside the nun's 
habit, except the veil — Ennuied with this quiet life, determine to return to 
Naples — Secure rooms — A priest assassinates his brother-in-law for some 
difference about thirty ducats, and then commits suicide — This occurring in 
the house where I lived, I feared the police, and moved my quarters — Victor 
Hugo's description of the Neapolitan police — Spies all around me — 1860 — 
The beginning of the end. 

Newly restored to the liviug, breathing world, 
which I had come to think I should never see again, 
everything appeared new to me. I inhaled the pure 
air in allopathic doses, as if I were counting the hours 
that I should be permitted to enjoy it. At the cheer- 
ful aspect presented to my view, so entirely new, so 
jubilant with life, I was greatly excited. The painful 
remembrances of the past were scarcely remembered, 
were almost ready, in fact, to disappear entirely, while 
the street which our carriage took on our route seemed 
to be flanked by an immensity, whose horizon greatly 
exceeded my aspirations. 

I signified to the bishop that I deemed it better for 
me now to avail myself of my newly-recovered liberty, 
by spending my time in the country rather than in the 
city J and he told me to do just as I pleased. Thii'sting 

444 



THE PEASANT AND THE BIRDS. 445 

for air, for light, for room, for free motion, I took my 
old lady friend every morning, and left the city to 
climb over the woody preQipices of Castellamare. 
From these heights, which overlook the city below, 
the entire bay of Naples, and the more picturesque 
confines of this beautiful country, I gazed now upon 
this point, now upon that, measured the harmonic 
proportions and the distances, inebriated with happi- 
ness, feeling my native strength re-born in me, and 
even inspired by a poesy of hopes and of affections, 
which I had never experienced before. I was never 
deterred from these excursions by the inclemency of 
the weather, nor by the floods, which sometimes broke 
loose in furious torrents down the sides of the mountain, 
nor by the fogs of autumn, which enveloped mountain 
and valley, everything, in fact, in their sable folds. 
With my eye fixed on the most distant point of the 
horizon I would wait the disappearance of the mist, to 
find in the light of the sun, now all the more beautiful 
and splendid, a prospect no longer circumscribed by an 
enormous wall, or by bars of iron. 

One day, in going over the mountain, we met a little 
peasant boy, who was carrying some twenty birds, 
which he had just caught, in a rough cage. 

How much do you want for all those little 
prisoners?" I asked. 

" Three piastres," answered the little rogue. 

He sold them to me finally for one, including the 



446 LAY ASIDE THE NTJN'S HABIT. 

cage. I took the poor prisoners out, one by one, and 
restored them to their native air, joyous to see them 
take to their wings again, and disappear among the 
trees. Having once baited the boy, he came often to 
find me, with new cages and new prisoners. Not find- 
ing me disposed to pay his price, he finally fixed it at 
two grana each ; and I often had the pleasure of giving 
to other of God's creatures the same happiness which 
he had conferred upon me. In seeing them escape 
from my hands, I said to myself: — 

"If Italy should ever recover her liberty, would she 
not do the same for other nations still languishing in 
slavery ? " 

My hair meanwhile was left to grow again. It fell 
under the scissors in San Gregorio, and for thirteen 
years had been sheared like the wool from the sheep's 
back. By degrees, as my tresses grew out, I seemed 
to grow stronger in personal independence, and I 
looked forward anxiously for the time to arrive when 
it should assume its old appearance, and when I might 
look into the mirror without being disgusted with the 
appearance of the person I always saw there. 

One other badge of servitude remained to me, and 
that was the monastical habit. I had already laid it 
aside in the house, but I was desirous to fiad the 
means to get rid of it out of doors as well, and forever. 
This costume not only humiliated me, but annoyed me, 
and encumbered me at every step. Everybody turned 



LAY ASIDE THE NUN'S HABIT. 447 

to look at me, — some from cm-iosity; «ome from 
offended fanaticism, — while I desired to pass through 
the streets unobserved. Those eyes which were directed 
at me, it did not matter whether with benign or malign 
intention, were they not an onerous tribute for me to 
be constantly paying to an effete institution ? Did they 
not diminish, in a great degree, the amount of the 
capital of my long-wished-for liberty ? Determined to 
make a finish of that anomaly one fine morning, I called 
on the bishop. 

" Mousignore," I said to him, " this dress gives me 
so much annoyance, that in order to get rid of it I have 
determined to expatriate myself, if you do not give me 
the permission to throw it aside." 

" I advise you to continue to wear it, " he replied ; 
then smilingly, added, "but if you are determined to 
throw it off at all hazards, there is no need to ask my 
permission." 

Some days subsequently I threw it off, and he did not 
appear to notice the change. 

One inheritance only of the past now remained to me ; 
this I preserved, symbol of my life of celibacy, and that 
was the Black Veil. 

Meantime the star of Italy was ascending the firma- 
ment ; small, it is true, but full of a consoling splendor. 
The Crimean war had procured for the monarch of Savoy 
(Victor Emanuel) , and for the political genius of Ca- 



448 DETERMINE TO EETURN TO NAPLES. 

millo Cavour, the opportunity to raise Piedmont, cham- 
pion of the nationality and of the military strength of 
Italy, to the rank of a power in Em*ope. A network of 
mail now mysteriously connected Turin with the princi- 
pal cities of the peninsula, and a group of electrical wires 
kept the fires of Italian patriotism constantly lighted. 

This feverish condition of things was more apparent 
in Naples than anywhere else ; in Naples, where the 
Bourbonic dynasty, from having violated the sanctity of 
contracts, found itself not only in a state of rebellion 
against its own subjects, but falling into discredit also 
in the respect of the civilized world, of which it had 
been virtually dispossessed since 1848. To the eyes of 
most of the world, Naples presented the formidable 
appearance of its neighboring volcano just before one 
of the most tremendous eruptions which the volcanic 
annals record. All the revolutionary parties (unfortu- 
nate heirs to the confusion Avhich had come down from 
former defeats) ; all parties, not excepting even the 
Bourbonico-clerical, were anxiously looking for the pre- 
cursory symptoms of the crisis which was about to ex- 
plode ; like Arrotiuo, the Florentine tribune, prcifoundly 
absorbed in watching for the conspiracy. 

What could I do to assist this great work, inactive in 
Castellamare ? My friends^ deploring my exile, ad- 
dressed me the most urgent appeals to return to Naples, 
and, thinking there might be some unimportant position 
there, in which my personal industry might be employed 



SECUKE EOOMS. 449 

to advantage, I threw all thouglits of danger to the 
winds, provided I could be of any service in the move- 
ment which I knew was about to take place. 

After eleven mouths passed in comparative idleness, 
therefore, in that place, I made a second call on the 
bishop. 

"Monsignore, if you should be driven from your see, 
and sent for the rest of your life into exile, would it 
please you ? " 

" It would not please anybody," he replied, because 
he fully understood the drift of my question. 

" And it displeases even me to be in exile ; and not 
wishing to remain forever separated from my relatives, 
I have resolved to return to Naples." 

" And Riario ? and the government ? and the spies ? " 

"From friends, God will protect me; from enemies, 
I will protect myself." 

A few days after this, I hired small apartments in the 
capital, in a new, small palace, opposite the Croce del 
Vasto, and my widowed friend went there to live with 
me. I did not go, however, without taking the pre- 
caution to hold at the same time a room at Castellamare, 
where I could find refuge in case of any imminent peril. 

The remote situation of these lodgings, my trans- 
formed dress, and the generous tolerance of the bishop, 
served for a long time to protect me from the curiosity 
of others ; and the minute circumspection which I ob- 



450 ASSASSINATION. 

served to preserve my incognito, would have prolonged 
my security if by an unforeseen accident Riario had not 
obtained scent of my return. 

On the floor above mine there lived a priest, whom I 
often met upon the stairs. tlis sinister looks both 
frightened and disgusted me. One evening, in the 
month of February, about nine o'clock, I left the wid- 
ow's room to go to bed. Between my room and the 
door of ingress was a little room which was lighted by 
a large lamp, which served also to light the stairs, the 
diiierent apartments being segregated, and the palace 
without a porter. Just as I passed through the room, I 
heard two persons coming down from the floor above, 
engaged in a fierce altercation. A horrible cry of "^^, 
infame!^^ made my hair stand on end with fright, and I 
then heard a man fall on the stairs, who in a weak voice 
cried, "You have assassinated me ! " 

I then heard a person run hurriedly up the stairs, and 
then a loud crying and sobbing in the room above mine, 
and, finally, the opening of a window in the rear of the 
palace, and the fall of a heavy body to the earth 
outside. 

We were all, of course, terribly frightened; every 
person in the palace was in motion. When I heard the 
voices of those whom I recognized and knew to be hon- 
est men, I took the lamp and went to the door. A 
rivulet of blood was running under it. I retreated, 
horrified : but afterwards, taking courage, I returned 



ASSASSINATION. 451 

to see if I could render any aid to the wounded man, if 
he should be yet alive. I opened the door, and oh, 
what a horrid spectacle ! . . . a young and fine-looking 
man was lying stretched at full length on the landing- 
place at my door. His intestines had been ripped up 
by a knife, and he was, just at that moment, in the last 
agonies of death. I inquired for the murderer, but no 
one knew anything about him. Not less unknown to 
all was his victim. In the mean time, the servant of 
the priest was heard struggling to release herself from 
the grasp of her mistress, crying, as loudly as she 
could : — 

"No, I will leave the house of this brigand immedi- 
ately." 

And saying so, she hurried down the stairs. On 
arriving at the corpse, she cried and howled and wrung 
her hands in great distress. On being asked who was 
the assassin, she replied : — 

" The priest ! " 

We all stood stupefied. 

" And this infame, where is he ? " 

" He has thrown himself from the window into the 
garden." 

The unfortunate youth had married the sister of this 
man nine mouths since, and the priest had killed him in 
a dispute about the paltry sum of thirty ducats, arising 
from a maternal dower. That eteniug the priest had 
sent for him, under the pretence of making an amicable 



452 SUICIDE OF THE PRIEST. 

accommodation ; but as the youth was going away, 
overjoyed at having concluded a peace, the priest, 
feigning to show him an important paper to read, fol- 
lowed him out upon the stairs, stopped under the lamp 
which lighted the stairs at my door, and there, instead 
of showing him the paper, plunged a large kitchen- 
knife into the poor young man's bowels ! The crime 
committed, he snatched a watch from the pocket of the 
murdered man, and cried, ^^AW assassin/" intending to 
mislead the people ; but, in the agitation of the moment, 
he forgot to throw away the bloody knife, and while 
crying out, actually held it in his hand. The servant, 
perceiving it, cried : — 

" It is you who are the murderer ; behold the knife ! " 

The priest then rushed upon her to kill her, but, 
hearing the noise of the people on the stairs, and seeing 
himself irretrievably discovered, he opened a window 
and threw himself out ! 

In the fright and confusion which followed, no one 
had thought to go and see whether he was alive or dead, 
until the arrival of the police, who then found him 
lying under the window with both legs and both arms 
broken, but still living. He died, however, the day 
after, in the prison of San Francesco. His sister, wife 
of the murdered man, six months eiiciente, was taken 
the same day to an insane asjiura ! 

Frightened by this traged}!-, which produced a great 
excitement in the city, the old lady who lived with me 



\ 



THE NEAPOLITAN POLICE. 453 

was not willing any longer to remain outside of the 
walls of the convent, fearing, perhaps, that she might 
be exposed to similar frights, and on that account she 
and her niece left me and entered the ritiro, and I 
changed my lodgings, going to a less solitary quarter. 

But the crime of the priest had unfortunately directed 
the archbishop and the police to'my tracks again. Who 
has not heard of the wonderful keenness of the Bour- 
bonical police, especially in hunting liberals ? 

"The kingdom of Naples," wrote Victor Hugo, "has 
but one institution, and that is the police. Every dis- 
trict has its commission for the use of the cudgel. 
Two sbirri^ Aiossa and Maniscalco, reign under the 
king. Aiossa cudgels Naples, and Maniscalco Sicily. 
But the cudgel is only a Turkish instrument of punish- 
ment, and the Neapolitan government adds to it a chas- 
tisement of the Inquisition, ^. e., the torture. This is the 
way they do it. One sbirro, Bruno, holds the accused, 
bound head and foot, until they confess. Another 
sbirro, Pontillo, then places them over a large gridiron 
and lights a fire underneath. This is the sedia ardente 
(the warm chair) . Another sbirro, Luigi Maniscalco, 
a relative of the above-named chief, is the inventor 
of an instrument into which a leg or an arm of the 
subject is introduced. A turn is then given to the screw 
and the member is fractured ; this is therefore called la 
macchina angelica. Another suspends a man by two 



454 THE NEAPOLITAN POLICE. 

iron rings, with his hands touching one wall and his 
feet the other, then jumps upon the unfortunate creature 
and dislocates his limbs. Then they have a small ma- 
chine with which they wrench the fingers out of their 
places, and iron bands for the head, which are so con- 
trived that the operator can force the eyes out of their 
sockets ! Sometimes one escapes. Casimirro Arsi- 
mano did, but who would believe it? His wife, his 
sons, and his daughters, were then arrested and put 
upon the sedid ardente in his place. 

" Cape Zafferano is a desert sand-beach. To the 
shore here several sbirri brought some sacks, in which 
men were tied up. They were thrown into the water, 
where they sustained themselves as long as they could, 
and were finally drawn ashore and asked if they would 
now confess! If they refused, they were immersed 
again, and kept there until they either confessed or 
died ! In this manner Giovanni Vienna, of Messina, 
died. 

" At Monreale an old man and his daughter were sus- 
pected of patriotism. The old man died under the 
cudgel ; his daughter, who was enciente, was stripped 
naked and cudgelled until she died. All this happened 
in the country of Tiberius Caesar ! " 

The police, then, having taken the names of all the 
inhabitants of the palace in which the assassination was 
committed, the cardinal did not fail to note my return 



\ 



SPIES. 455 

to Naples, and my cloiiiicile as well. I was certain, 
then, that if by any misfortune I should happen to fall 
into their hands, I might perhaps escape the sedia 
ardente; but assuredly not the cudgel. 

From that day, spies were set in motion and placed 
upon my track in swarms, the greater part of whom 
were priests and monks. Priests, acting as police 
agents, notified of my change of domicile, buzzed around 
in the vicinity of my house continually, and followed 
me everywhere, silently, constantly, and as inseparably 
as my own shadow. Learning by degrees to recognize 
them, although disguised, I took no further notice of 
them. I was very careful, however, not to give them 
any pretext for denunciation, which they were evidently 
seeking, in my relations with persons suspected of lib- 
eralism. As for myself, I did not fear to be followed. 
On one side, the permission I had received from Rome 
to leave a place in which I had been forcibly confined ; 
on the other, my change of jurisdiction, were two argu- 
ments likely to restrain the tyranny of Riario. Never- 
theless, I took counsel how best to elude the vigilance 
of the laical and priestly spies by whom I was sur- 
rounded, and was entirely successful in 'the result. By 
which means I was able, not only to defend myself, but 
could even entertain my friends freely, and occasionally 
visit some houses which were marked with the black 
cross of the commissario. 

To give an idea of the methods which I adopted to 



456 SPIES. 

elude the vigilance of the spies, it will be sufScicut to 
say, that ia the interval of six years, I changed my resi- 
dence eighteen times, and my servant thirty-two times ! 

This system of Bourbonical espionage was of mon- 
strous proportions. It was dressed in a thousand differ- 
ent forms, and took as many different attitudes, and 
infested the very air of the sanctuary itself. If I went 
into a neighboring church, the priests assailed me, even 
to the door, with the demand, "Do you not wish to con- 
fess?" and, establishing myself in some new house, the 
neighbors would watch the opportunity to catch my 
servant alone, and to offer her all sorts of bribes and 
inducements to betray me, and would inquire : — 

" Is she unmarried ? " " Is she a widow ? " " Why does 
she live alone ? " " Why is she not married ? " " Who is 
her confessor?" "Has she any lover?" "Is she in cor- 
respondence with any one?" "Who were those who 
visited her this morning?" "And her letters, does she 
carry them to the post-office herself, or do you ? " 

And this is the way the news, pumped from the ser- 
vant, passed from one to another : It went first to the 
druggist's,* then to the cafes, and often to the physician, 
of the neighborhood ; from there they were transmitted, 
under the seal of the confession to the priest, from him 
to the bishop, from whom they passed, ipse facto ^ to the 



* It is customary for the gossips of the neighborhood, in country places in the 
United States, to assemble at the tavern or " store," for their usual daily canvass- 
ing of the affairs of their neighbors; while in South Italy this important business 
is all carried on at the druggist's. 



SPIES. 457 

^commissariat, wlience they travelled, finally, even to the 
cabinet of the king himself ! 

There once happened to live directly opposite to me 
an old maid, the most annoying mosquito of the clerical 
marshes of Naples. Her house was from morning till 
evening a perfect highway for monks and priests of 
every stripe. She would take them out upon the bal- 
cony, where she had the good taste to point me out to 
them with her finger, if by accident I happened to go 
near the window. My servant had been liberally bribed 
by her with presents, and by this means she kept herself 
informed of everything that happened in my house. To 
free myself from the stings of this insect, which gave 
me no peace, night nor day, I decided to forfeit three 
months' rent, which had been paid in advance, and seek 
an asylum in another street. 

But I only went farther and fared worse ; for I learned 
with astonishment that the master of my new house was 
an employe of the police ! When I ascertained this fact, 
I was on the«point of forfeiting another quarter's rent 
already paid, but concluded that another such a sudden 
change would arouse the suspicions of the police to a 
greater degree than ever, and on that account I decided 
to remain. 

At the right hand and at the left, on the same floor 
that I occupied, were stationed two male sbirri in dis- 
guise ; on the lower floor, two female sbirri watched and 



458 SPIES. 

gossiped : these were sisters of the master of the^ 
house. i 

Spies at the key-hole ; spies on the stairs ; spies in the 
court-yard and on the terrace, in short, an invasion of 
spies on all sides and in every possible place. This 
Argus with a hundred eyes having observed that I did 
not confess, notified the priest, and he called my servant 
into his house to subject her to a long and minute inter- 
rogation, particularly in respect to the names and char- 
acters of the persons who were in the habit of frequenting 
my rooms. Nothing came of it ; the servant having 
affirmed that she had not seen any one there who seemed 
to be on very intimate terms with me. And this was 
true ; but I was now obliged to change my servant again. 

I received from the police during all this time but a 
single scratch ! 

Several months after the death of Ferdinand II., I 
met, near the Museum, a gentleman not less famous for 
his patriotism than for his learning. Exchanging the 
customary compliments, we spoke briefly of the aspect 
things were assuming in Italy in consequence of the im- 
becile government of Francesco 11. ; then, looking care- 
fully around, this gentleman drew from his pocket a letter 
which he consigned to me. I placed it in my bosom, 
not, however, without perceiving that it had already been 
under the eyes of the police, and, as a consequence, not 
without being sure of receiving a visit on the morrow 
from some of the sbirri, to render an account of it. 



GOVERNMENT MANIFESTO. 459 

And so it turned out. 

Early in the morning I received a visit fr6m one of 
the aids of Aiossa, who, with unaccustomed politeness, 
asked me when, where, and by what means, I had made 

the acquaintance of Signor B G ; if he was in 

the habit of visiting me ; and what he had said to me 
the day before, etc., etc. 

To all of which I replied in a manner which seemed 
to satisfy him. 

" And the paper which he placed in your hands," he 
asked, finally ; " will you do me the favor to allow me 
to see it a moment? " . 

"Here it is," I replied, promptly, and with entire 
self-possession ; and taking up a folded newspaper which 
I had laid on my desk to meet the case, I handed it to 
him with a studied politeness, which I designed to be 
quite equal to his. 

The morning of June 25, 1860, all the street-corners 
of Naples were crowded with people of all classes, intent 
on reading a government manifesto, with which the walls 
had been placarded. It was an act of the sovereign, by 
which the young Heliogabalus, egged on by the revolt in 
Sicily, by the successes of Garibaldi, by the threatening 
attitude of affairs in his own capital and in the neighbor- 
ing provinces, by the invasive intentions, as he charac- 
terized them, of the house of Savoy, and by the indiffer- 
ence of cabinets, promised to his subjects, representative. 



460 GOVERNMENT MANIFESTO. 

Italian and national institutions, and a league with the 
King of Sardinia ; he accepted the tricolor, and intimated 
that Sicily should have analogous institutions. 

After reading it, every one shrugged his shoulders 
with an air of doubt as well as disgust. 

"What does it say?" I demanded of my companion, 
who, in order to read it, had forced his way through the 
crowd. 

"It is," he replied, " the last will and testament of a 
merchant, who has failed for the fifth time ! " 

Here is an extract from an address of the central 
committee of Naples to the people of the city, which 
appeared a few hours later : — 

"All the apparent concessions, offered on account of 
the urgency of the times, and fully understood as in- 
tended only to retard the full and complete operation 
of the national regeneration, will be welcomed only 
with disdain ! " 



CHAPTER XXY. 



" Italia Una "—The breaking out of the revolution all over Italy— Extracts from 
a great poem — Francesco II. — Address of a celebrated republican to him — 
September 7, 1860, in Naples, the day of Garibaldi's public reception — Deposit 
my veil in the altar of San Gennaro — Make the acquaintance of a gentleman 
whom I marry. 

While in those magical words, " Italia Una ! " which, 
resounding from one extremity of the peninsula to the 
other, revived the aspirations of twenty centuries, and 
verified the predictions of all jprofound thinkers, — 
while the heroic captain, del mille^ Giuseppe Garibaldi, 
was achieving almost miracles in the field, a patriotic 
voice was heard, — one which spoke in tones louder 
than the despot's cannon. It was the voice of a poet, 
who, for his genius, for his ardent love of liberty, for 
his long exile, has been admitted to citizenship by every 
liberal nation on the earth. It was the voice prophet- 
ical, which raised the hymn of glory for regenerated 
Italy. 

" The sepulchres are opening ! From tomb to tomb, 
the cry is Resuscitate ! It is more than life ; it is an 
apotheosis ! Oh, it is a supreme palpitation of the 



462 EXTRACTS FROM A GREAT POEM. 

heart, when one who has been humiliated, rises again to 
indignation ; when the splendors which for many cen- 
turies have been eclipsed, "reappear, brilliant and terrible ; 
when Stamboul is once again Byzantium ; when Seti- 
niah returns to Athens, and Eome returns to Rome ! 

" Let us all applaud Italy ! Let us glorify this land 
of great productions ; Alma parens! Among nations 
like this, certain abstract dogmas clothe the reality ; 
are made visible and palpable. This nation is a virgin 
for honor, and a mother from her inexhaustible fecundity. 

"You, who listen to me, figure to yourselves this 
magic vision. Italy free ! Free from the Gulf of 
Tarauto to the lagunes of San Marco (for, on thy tomb, 
I swear to thee, O Mauin, that Venice shall also take 
part in the celebration) , say, can you figure to yourself 
this vision, which is, to-day, prophecy, but which, to- 
morrow, shall be history? Italians, as a nation, have 
now done with tyrants and falsehoods, simulations, 
ashes, and darkness ! All these have disappeared ! 
Italy exists ! Italy is Italy ! 

" Yes, that which was but now a geographical expres- 
sion has become a nation ; where there was only a 
corpse, there is now a soul ; where there was a worm, 
there now stands an archangel, the radiant cherub of 
civilized Christianity ! Liberty is on her feet, with ex- 
panded wings ! Italy, the great defunct, is awakened ! 
Behold her ! she is risen, and smiles compassionately on 



FRANCESCO II. 4(13 

all the human race. She says to Greece, 'I am thy 
daughter!' aucl to France, 'I am thy mother!' 

"A sovereign nation, she has around her, her poets, 
her orators, her artists, her philosophers, her great citi- 
zens ; all these councillors of humanity, these conscript 
fathers of universal intelligence ; all members of the 
Senate of ages, while on the right hand and on the left, 
stand those two great names of world-wide renown, 
Dante and Michael Angelo ! What a triumph ! What 
an event ! What a marvellous phenomenon ! The most 
majestic of accomplished facts, which at one flash illu- 
minates that magnificent Pleiades of sister cities, Milan, 
Turin, Genoa, Florence, Bologna, Pisa, Siena, Parma, 
Palermo, Messina, Naples, Verona, Venice, and Rome ! 

"Italy is rising ; behold, she walks ; incessupatuit dea ; 
she shines resplendently ; exulting in her genius, to the 
entire world she communicates the fever of progress 
and Europe is electrified by this portentous light ! 
There will not be less ecstasy in the eyes of the people, 
less sublime happiness in their faces, less admiration, less 
joy and transport for this new light upon the earth, tlian 
there would be at the appearance of a new and entirely 
unexpected comet in the heavens ! " 

Educated in the perfidious school of his fathers, 
Francesco II. , V infame of our day, hoped, in the mean- 
while, to hold on to power by amusing his subjects, as 
well as the rest of Italy and Europe, until the opportu- 



464 FRANCESCO II. 

nity should arrive to fill Naples again with Austrian bay- 
onets. Blind to the destructive stream of lava which 
was being thrown up every day, and which Avas narrowing 
more and more the circle of his influence ; deaf to the 
counsels of a wise kinsman, as he was to the subterra- 
nean tones of the volcano under his throne, he deter- 
mined to depend only upon the litanies of the priests, 
and the traditional ignorance of the rabble. 

But the time of the Fra Diavolos, of tlie Kuffis, 
of the Maria Carolines, of the Actons and of the Ger- 
mans, was already past ; alreadj^ the mortal remains of 
Caracciolo returned from the bottom of the sea and 
floated before the eyes of evil-doers on its surfiice ; from 
the gibbet of Pagano and from that of Bandiera, along 
that street of expiation, saturated with the purest blood 
of Italy, resoimded but one cry : " Death to the Bour- 
bons ! " " Long live the Prince who will extend his hand 
to the nation ! " 

Finally, the great decrees of Providence were con- 
summated. The presentiments of so many centuries 
took form and action in one of the most remarkable rev- 
olutions in the history of the world. The last monarch 
of the Capeti was vanishing from the scene like a ghost 
at the appearance of day, while t*ie cruciform ensign of 
Savoy, emblem of independence and of unity, inaugu- 
rating the reign of the national conscience, was unfolded 
on almost all the mountain heights of the peninsula. 

I remember an address which expresses with admira- 



ADDRESS TO FRANCESCO II. 465 

ble fidelity aucl conciseness the sentiments of the people 
of Naples and of Sicily, at the moment when the young 
scion of the Ferdinands suddenly embarked for Gaeta. 

It is the " adieu " which an old emigre sent to the 
Bourbon in epistolary form, in the name of the Italians 
of the South. In the belief that it will be gratifying to 
the reader, I print the letter entire ; its merit will com- 
pensate for its length. 

" Sire : — 

" Whilst your enemies accompany you with maledic- 
tions and your friends with words of contempt, it may 
be permitted to a patriot to take leave of you with a 
kind of adieu to which you have never been accustomed 
to listen, — the truth, which posterity will tell and 
which courtiers will hide. 

" The battle of Velletri gave the throne to your family ; 
the conquest of Reggio took it away. Between these 
two events one hundred and twenty-six years intervene. 
Let us now make up the balance-sheet with the inheri- 
tance you leave. 

" The histor}^ of no other people offers a spectacle to 
compare with that of Naples. A hundred and twenty-six 
years of existence have been a hundred and twenty-six 
years of insurrection almost permanent ; a hundred and 
twenty-six years of reign which has caused a moral ex- 
propriation of the virility and of the intelligence of this 
people. The primary care of your first ancestor was to 



466 ADDRESS TO FRANCESCO II. 

barricade these provinces of Italy in the autonomy of a 
state : — Italians under the dominion of Spain ; that 
made us Neapolitans. We had been one family with 
Milan, with Parma, with Sicily, governed by bad mas- 
ters, and trembling under bad masters. 

" Charles III. cut us loose. And when the people of 
France in '89 called upon the people and princes of 
Europe to examine the title-deeds to their thrones, this 
family, united by the same chain, l^y the same griefs, 
by the same miseries, found themselves disseminated, 
and isolated, and individualized. We were like the an- 
cient states of France, whose common dangers and com- 
mon laws formed them into a nation ; your great grand- 
father made of Italy a Germany of capuchins; an 
original sin which no baptism of blood, or of tears, can 
ever cancel. King Ferdinand completed the work of 
isolation. He did more. He mixed, very stupidly, into 
coalitions against France, which twice brought on foreign 
occupation. He threw the kingdom irreclaimably into 
the lost fortunes of Austria, and she took our men, 
money, and ships, as considerations for coming to the 
rescue. He deprived us of liberty and denied us every 
human right, and when we opened our eyes to the sun 
with which the political agitators of France illuminated 
the world, King Ferdinand made the kingdom bloody 
with gibbets, which served to give variety to the amuse- 
ments. He sold us to the English, after having pros- 
trated us before Austria. When he fled, he robbed us ; 



ADDRESS TO FrvANCESCO 11. 407 

he robbed us like a highwayman, insulting ns by saying 
that he would leave us only ' gli occlii per piangere ' 
(eyes with which to weep) . He stole the deposits of 
the banks and of the pawnbrokers ; burned ships, 
stripped the royal palace, and caluminated us. 

"Then returning from exile he vituperated and killed as 
many as he could ; killed the very best ; exterminated all 
who thought, all who felt generously ; all who honored 
Italy, and all whose hearts palpitated with love of country. 

" Shadows began to fall upon the kingdom. When 
the French Eepublic, the Directory, and the First Con- 
sul spread over Europe, by haudfuls, the glory of victo- 
ries, of codes, of rules of the Institute, of administra- 
tive organizations ; and striking the Caliph of Rome, 
said to him : ' Thou art a priest and canst not be a 
king ! ' then King Ferdinand began to act the king-buf- 
foon, and to work the demolition of all the advantages 
we had derived from the French occupation ; only re- 
specting the aggravated system of subsidies. Then per- 
juring Himself when he had sworn to make us free, he 
consigned us, bound hand and foot to Austria ; overran 
the kingdom with German soldiers, and gave us up to 
robbery and pillage. Then he placed upon our necks 
the implacable yoke of conventions ; contaminated us 
with monks and priests ; created the police which swal- 
lowed up the kingdom and deluged it with crime, and 
enfeoffed us like freehold property in the hands of cour- 
tesans and blackguards. 



468 ADDIIESS TO Fr.ANCESCO II. 

" Sarclanapalus passed away. What remained of him? 
What step had he taken to lead this people in the path 
of progress ? except that of cutting off the tail {queue) 
of his wig? What free institutions remain to us as an 
inheritance of the great commotion excited by the French 
revolution, except the conservation of the laud-tax and 
the standing army? What benefits did he leaye to us 
except the fathers of the Company of Jesus, and a 
Canosa ministry ? He took away everything from us ; be- 
queathing us only Francesco, together wath the hatred 
not yet appeased wdiich exists between the Neapolitans 
and Sicilians. 

" Sire, tell us for what we must thank you ; for what 
we must remember the reign of Ferdinand I. ? Is it for 
his many acts of contempt, of blood, of defamation? 
Or for the prisons he left filled, or for the exile in which 
so many eminent Italians perished miserably ? Perhaps 
for the hkinco terrore which enveloped the kingdom like 
a winding sheet ? or for the occupation of the Austrian 
army ? Must we remember the public debt' — the 
Giunto di 8tato — of the supremacy of Rome ; of the 
budget (annual tax) redou])led ; of the civil admiuistra- 
tion concentrated in the police, and of a police which is 
called Canosa ? The Jesuit and the gendarme the first 
functionaries of the state ; the tri])la censura on the 
productions of genius ; the axiom, de Deo paiica, de 
rege nihil, elevated to a dogma of State — a precept of 
the code? 



ADDKESS TO FEAJSrCESCO II. 469 

" Sire, is it for these things that we must remember 
you? Is is for such things we must respect in you the 
descendant of King Nason ? Is it on this account that, 
in going away, you invoke the justice of God ; the 
sanction of a just public ; that you appeal to diplomacy, 
to treaties, to history, to force, to reasons of state? 
Sire, are these the titles which consecrate you King of 
Naples? or do we forget some one of them? Yes, we 
forget the orgies of Caroline — a Semiramide worthy 
the court of assizes ; the lover of Emma Leona ; we 
forget the capitulation of Nelson ; the rascalities of 
Cardinal Euffo ; we forget the financial operations of 
the Medici ; the maquignonnage of the throne at the 
Court of Vienna, by which we paid six millions of the 
Rothschild loan ; the secret articles of the Treatj'' of 
Lay bach, and that of Verona. . . . Sire, shall we be 
ungrateful if we forget these things? Are these the 
titles which you invoke ? 

"And yet, sire. King Lazzaroui seems to have been 
the best of your race ; King Francesco was a terrible 
dawn of blood ; Bosco demolished, cries to God for 
justice ; the recollection of De Matteis still makes the 
Calabrians tremble with terror ; and the traffickings of 
Viglia and De Simone still keep the eyes of the angel 
of modesty veiled. The catacombs of the Carbonari ; 
the inquisitions of the State ; the Giunti of Maori, of 
De Girola, and of Janet, — made the hair of those 
stand on end who were then brought into contact with 



470 ADDRESS TO FEANCESCO II. 

Mazza, Goverua, or Aiossa. For five years five mil- 
lions of men dared not to breathe for fear of revealing 
the fact of their'existence. The church enveloped the 
kingdom under its black cassock, and said : ' I am the 
State ! ' The genadarme opened a gigantic handcuff, 
and said : ' This is for you ! ' 

"Kinof Francesco, in short, was nothinsr but an ex- 
tinguisher ; his government, an air-pump. Canosa 
drew blood ; Medici drew gold ; and the rest labored, 
each vying with the other to rob us of honor, of mind, 
of conscience, of moral life. Tommasi trafiicked with 
justice ; Nunziante and Pastore, with the army. Relig- 
ion became an instrument of torture, and the principal 
weapon of the throne ; the power supreme was the 
police. This posthumous Claudius, who had always 
lived among spectres, remorses, perjuries, and rancors, 
since the insurrection of 1820, thirsty for blood and for 
vengeance, implacable as Sylla, a cold and calculating 
hangman, — after five years, died. AYhither did he go ? 

" He inherited a nation ; he left a corpse. He found 
here the Austrians, scurvy hirelings ; he left us the 
Swiss, the ignominy of their own country, the enduring 
misery of onrs. He found the Mui-atists and the Con- 
stitutionalists of '20 ; he left us the Canosini and the 
Liguoristi ; the university gorged with priests, and the 
treasury empty by the journey to Spain. For military 
glory, the capitulation of Tripoli ; for a decoration, ' the 
order of merit ; ' the recompense of spies and policemen ; 



ADDEESS TO FRANCESCO II. 471 

the navy destroyed, and Prince Metternich sovereign in 
fact. The public debt which Ferdinand found, in 1815, 
at ninety-four thousand ducats per annum, and the 
Parliament of 1820 had purified to one million four hun- 
dred and four thousand, Francesco left at three million 
one hundred and ninety thousand eight hundred and 
fifty ducats, besides four and a half millions of floating 
debt ! The budget which he found at twenty-three mil- 
lions, he left at nearly twenty seven ; with a million and 
three hundred thousand ducats of pensions of grace, 
granted to reward the most shameful and infamous ser- 
vices ! 

" We have endeavored, Sire, to find some one 
thing that does credit to your family ; but we find only 
the unbridled licentiousness of Queen Isabella ; we have 
desired to cite some act which is gratefully remembered 
by the Neapolitans, or respected in Italy, and find only 
the execution of Cilento ; the snare laid for the Capoz- 
zoli ; the journey to Rome to kiss the Pope's foot, and- 
that to Milan to bend the knee to Metternich. Alas, Sire, 
do we forget any benefits, except the change of Canosa 
for T«nti ? Do we omit any act of your race, except the 
three millions we paid for the illogical mosque of San 
Francesco di Paola ? What remained to our fathers of 
the reign of Francesco, except an interminable maledic- 
tion, — a cry of fright and horror ! 

"If to establish your right, you Lave, Sire, any other 
titles besides that of ' by the grace of God,' produce 



472 ADDRESS TO FRANCESCO 11. 

them ; for inheritance from your two nearest ancestors 
is not sufficient to save the throne for you, although you 
are out of our reach ; nor will it save your head, if in 
fighting with us it should fall into our hands ! 

"And your father, has he afforded any better illustra- 
tion of your dynasty ? What did he do for the nation ? 
Did he advance our civilization a single step ? Did he 
render his subjects any more highly esteemed in Europe, 
more prosperous and free at home, more thought of in 
other parts of Italy ! Ah, Sire, for one hundred and 
twenty-six years, Naples has been repeating the old 
story of the old woman of Dionysius. Francesco showed 
how just, liberal, and humane, was KingPidcineUa ; King 
Bomba made us wish for King Cajypio;* and your Maj- 
esty pays for all ! 

"Ferdinand II! What can I say to your majesty 
which Europe does not already know ? Where is there a 
man that is so much despised and execrated among men ? 
Foreign parliaments have from the height of their tribu- 
nals covered him Avith insults ; the press has exhausted 
the vocabulary of infamy ! He was the Napoleon of 
shame ! and his subjects were permanently iu iusm-rec- 
tion. 

"In 1830 it was Palermo; in '32 was the conspiracy 

♦Ferdinand I. was father of Francesco I. and was nicknamed ruJcinella, be- 
cause of his trivial character. Francesco I. was the father of Ferdinand II. who 
was called King Bomha. King Cappio was a nickname given to Francesco I. when 
he rewarded large numbers of the Carbonari with the gibbet, whom he had already 
flattered with the most liberal promises, while he was a fugitive in Sicily and 
wanted their support. 



ADDEESS TO FRANCESCO II. 473 

of Frate Angelo Peluso ; in '34, the conspiracy of Eos- 
saroU; in '35, the conspiracy of San Carlo, in which 
Orazio Mazza made his first essay in the trade of in- 
former; in '37, the rebellion in Sicily; in '38, that of 
Cosenza and of Aquila; in '41, Aquila again; in '44, 
Cosenza again ; in the same year, the expedition of the 
Baudiera in Calabria; in '46, Gerace, Reggio, and Ci- 
lento ; and in '48, in the whole kingdom ! 

"No prince for a longer time, ever held the axe ex- 
tended over the heads of his subjects, or used it with 
more harshness. After the proclamation of the statute, 
he perjured himself; then there was the terrible revolu- 
tion of May 15 ; then an implacable struggle between 
the people and the king ; and above all this, the head 
of the Medusa of Austria, more terrific even than the 
king himself, more execrated than even Peccheneda, 
Mazza, Governa, or Aiossa. 

" Your ancestors. Sire, what else were they but Co- 
lumbuses, of the sbirro type? Genius was necessary to 
create Canosa, Intonti, Del Caretto, and Campagna. A 
reformer of finance, Ferdinand walked out, leaving us a 
public debt of about twelve millions, and a budget of 
thirty-nine millions, without having, as Victor Emanuel 
has done, built railroads for the people, and made war 
for the regeneration of Italy. A reformer of the ad- 
ministration, Ferdinand produced the Longobardis, the 
Carafa, the Aiossa, the De Liquoris, and D'Urso, Fer- 
dinand Troya and Murena ; placed sbirri and spies in 



474 ADDRESS TO FRANCESCO II. 

Episcopal sees, in intendeucies, in tribimals, at the re- 
ceipt of customs, iu the adtniuistration of finance, in 
diplomatic posts. Over all there was a stain of mud, of 
blood ; — a perjurer ; an imbecile ! As a commander of 
soldiers, Ferdinand drained the populace to the dregs, 
in order that he might arrive at the glory of the hyper- 
bolical flight from Velletri and his army at the 
defeat of Sicily, but not of the Sicilians and to the disso- 
lution of the corps in Calabria. Director of religion, 
Ferdinand invented a species concordat of police, and 
drove all the clergy to take up arms, — some to over- 
turn the throne, others to spread treasonable vespers 
among the people ; Autonelli iu some places, very gen- 
erally a hatred of Victor Emanuel, and Christ nowhere. 
In order to reign, — and not a single day tranquil even 
when shut up in his Escurial at Gaeta, hated, hating, — 
Ferdinand committed 897 political assassinations, and 
confined 15,261 citizens in penitentiaries; condemned 
73,000 to prisons, and held under surveillance more 
than 200,000 persons in IsTaples and Sicily ! Contrasted 
with him, the Duke of Alva was an angel of peace ! 

"Ferdinand had bombs to exterminate his subjects, 
and courteous words onlj'- for the enemies of Italy. In- 
solent in prosperity, whenever he could be so with 
impunity, he hurried into pusillanimity when danger 
seized him by the throat. The United States of Amer- 
ica demanded an unjust indemnity, and he paid it. 
England imposed enormous conditions on sulphur, and 



ADDEESS TO FEANCESCO II. 475 

he submitted to them. Piedmont demanded the resti- * 
tution of the Cagliari, and he made it. Talarico (even 
Talarico !) offered terms to surrender himself, and he 
sent his minister to treat with the brigand. No one in 
the world more readily than he stooped to kiss the filthy 
hands of the priests and the monks. As king, he au- 
thorized his functionaries to rob, and to steal, and 
divided in common with them the proceeds of the rob- 
beries ; then he became an usurer, like the Duke of 
Modena, and associated himself with receivers of bribes 
to starve his kingdom. There is not, in short, a single 
act of your father's life which is not disgraceful or crim- 
inal. . . . He was king only by the negation of God ! 

"And after twenty-nine years' reign, what remains of 
him ? A nickname only : Bomba ; and we may add, 
Sire, your expulsion is the end of the Bourbon dynasty. 
Of this beautifnl country, bacio di Dio, he made a gol- 
gotha of the people ! Now they rise again, and like the 
angel in Milton, cry, " Away, race of Cain ! Be ye 
cursed ! cursed ! cursed ! ' 

"You, meanwhile, proclaim yourself innocent ; you, 
going away, implore our compassion upon your youth 
and for your understanding. Excuse us ; if God cut 
you out for a Franciscan friar, why should you persist 
in remaining king? You are culpable, even you, like 
all your predecessors ; more, even, than they. They 
sinned, principally, against the people ; you, against 
Italy. If Venice be still subject to Austria, it is your 



476 ADDEESS TO FRAXCESCO II. 

foult. If the pope still holds Eome, the fault is yours ! 
. . . Yes, you committed the greatest of crimes 
against Italy and the Italians, when, on the field of 
Lombardy, the French and the Italian soldiers strug- 
gled side by side with the everlasting enemy of Italy, 
and your soldiers were not found there ! If Italy had 
had there the hundred thousand soldiers subject to your 
command. Napoleon III. would not have dared to make 
the infamous treaty of peace of Villafranca ! You pro- 
claim yourself innocent ! Excuse us ; you may be in- 
capable ; innocent, no ! You are the Judah of Italy, 
and for you there is no mercy ! 

" And what is your conduct at this moment ? 

" I have no desire to sadden your agony, because your 
last attempts against the Neapolitan people, and against 
Italy, will bring you but little glory. You endeavored 
to defend yourself in Sicily, in the Calabrias, in the 
Principati, in the capital itself; the sword is broken in 
your hand. Now, running away, you would imitate the 
Duke of Modena, by carrjdng off the treasury, jewels, 
pictures, and furniture, and would even take with you 
whole regiments of troops, and all our ships of war. 
Now, you would tempt fortune by making a desperate 
resistance between the Volturno and the Garigliano. 
That which you stole, like Ferdinand I., — that which 
you have accumulated, through drops of our blood, and 
turned into gold, — take with you, and may God not call 
you to an account for the poor man's mouthful of bread. 



ADDEESS TO FRANCESCO II. 477 

"But to consign our lives and our navy to Austria, 
to provoke new fratricidal struggles, behind the strong 
walls of Capua and Gaeta, — this is too much. Be 
careful, however; fortune plays sad pranks, and the 
patience of the people is exhausted. Louis XVI., 
would he ever have believed that he could be arrested 
in the public streets, and sent off to the guillotine? 
James II. and Charles X. and Louis Philippe, would 
they ever have believed that they were destined to con- 
sume their lives in exile? Gaeta is not impregnable. 
. . . . And if we should happen to take it ? 

"Sire, to know how to fall gracefully, is the most 
difficult lesson for kings to learn. You could not end 
your career like Julian, like Manfred, like Kosciusko; 
it would be ingenuous to pretend for you, the end of 
Sylla, or that of Charles V., or that of Christine of 
Sweden, or the act of Fontainebleau. Educated as a 
capuchin, you cannot end your career like a man. Do, 
then, as Csesar did when dying, cover your head . . . 
and leave Italy. You are still young. To qualify 
yourself for the dignity of a king, is impossible. You 
would however command esteem, both as a man and as 
an Italian, if, when we shall be drawn up, in order of 
battle, under the walls of Verona, you would imitate 
your young relative, the Duke of Chartres, by taking up 
the musket of a volunteer, and joining the ranks of the 
Italians. 

" A similar act of abnegation on your part would 



478 ADDRESS TO FRAXCESCO II. 

make you the greatest of your famil}^, from the 'fowl-in- 
the-pot' king, to your oavd father, of fatal memory. 
Surrounded by vile courtiers, who beg for your smiles 
and your last favors, you would not to-day be able 
properly to estimate the counsels of an enemy. When 
you shall have slept the serene sleep of exile, and find 
yourself on the free soil of England, purified from the 
miasma of the royal palace, then, perhaps, you will 
think it less strange, and remember it. 

"Sire, depart without anger or rancor, because we 
feel neither the one nor the other for you. We pardon 
you. The people rarely remember their wrongs, and 
tliey know how to show themselves magnanimous. 
Your youth, although darkened by some atrocious acts, 
affects us still, like the aurora of the seas of the south, 
which a passing cloud veils and hides. This people has 
a poetic heart, but not yet a p jctic mind. To brave 
maledictions and retaliations, in order to obtain a suc- 
cess as your fiither did, may be justified and allowed to 
pass ; but to do as you have done, is a manoeuvre in the 
spectacle of a comic opera, which is not consistent with 
the dignity of a prince, the character of a Christian, nor 
the work of a citizen. You will not have any battalions 
ready to die for you at your door ! 

"Adieu, Sire; resign yourself to the justice of men, 
if you wish that God should be just ! Endure with 
greatness of soul the punishment for the crimes of your 
fathers ! Be able to say to yourself, every hour of your 



SEPTEMBER 7, ISGO. 479 

life, 'I shed so much blood, and not more than was 
necessary to save my honor ; ' conduct 3' ourself like a 
gentleman, since you have ceased to be a king. Be of 
our times, up to the level of the century, of civiliza- 
tion, of science ; bow your head reverently before the 
new law of right, which is eternal, of the people, of the 
nation ; renounce all unfruitful and criminal attempts to 
regain your throne. Surround yourself with men who 
are your superiors and not your lackeys, who instil into 
your mind the bitterness of hate, and the conceits of 
their foolish ambitions. 

"Adieu, Sire. May Heaven grant that this leave 
without bitterness, which in the name of all the king- 
dom we now take of you, may not be changed into the 
farewell of Medea." 

Brilliant and sparkling, as on the summit of Thabor, 
returned to Naples the same sun which on the evening 
before had shed its departing rays on the funeral of the 
Bourbon dynasty. 

The seventh of September, 1860, is a date memorable 
in the history of Naples : citing which, there will be no 
necessity to add a word. There was but little sleep in 
the city the preceding night. The preparations for the 
reception of the great liberator were spontaneous and 
popular. Daylight found everybody astir in Naples. 
The principal streets were crowded by more than a hun- 
dred thousand persons, mostly armed, in apprehension 



480 GARIBALDI. 

of some reactionary movement. Windows, balconies, 
terraces and even roofs were thronged with spectators. 
In the Toledo, there was no passing ; not a house but 
what was profusely dressed with the national emblems, 
or hung with tapestries ; and in that wild and joyous 
agitation, in that delirium, there was a contiuual out- 
pouring of martial and patriotic songs ; an uuinterupted 
roar of voices, which soon became hoarse with their ex- 
cessive "vivas" for Italy, Naples, and Garibaldi ! 

I was seized with the ambition to be the first to take 
the great liberator by the hand, and, in gratifying it, I 
endangered my life. I knew the route he was to take, 
and determined to station myself at the large door of the 
" Forostoria," where the hero was obliged to descend 
from his carriage. Thanks to the exertions of several 
of my acquaintances, I succeeded for a moment to set- 
tle myself there, but the crowd increasing, fearfully, I 
was nearly crushed and almost died from asphyxia. My 
vanity was satisfied a little later, however, in the piazza 
of the cathedral, in the midst of the deafening acclama- 
tions of the people, in the shadow of a hundred tri- 
colored banners, which were flying over my head, aud 
under showers of flowers, which were rained down from 
all the windows in the neighborhood. 

The unusual excitement of the day had paled the cheek 
of the hero. The pallor of his countenance expressed a 
sadness, which contrasted strongly, with the delirious 
inebriety of his admirers. Only in his eye was observed 



MT SENSATIONS. 481 

the innate greatness of his soul ; that eye, superior to any 
disturbance of the senses, seemed fixed at that moment 
upon the bastions of Mantua._ 

The warriors of heroic G-reece were honored as demi- 
gods in their day ; those of modern times have hid 
statues ; but no hero, either ancient or modern, ever re- 
ceived, during his lifetime, so many cordial embraces 
from the people as did Garibaldi in a single day in Na- 
ples. 

And of my own sensations, what shall I say? 

With eyes moistened with tears of joy, I raised my 
thoughts to Heaven, and from the bottom of my heart 
returned thanks to God for three things : for having twice 
saved me from my own desperation ; for having released 
me from the despotism of priests and from the persecu- 
tion of spies ; and for having permitted me to be a spec- 
tator of one among the grandest and most touching 
scenes of a Christian regeneration, which the world has 
ever seen. 

But of what importance now and henceforth are my 
sensations. Tiresome superfluities. The drama is con- 
cluded. My story finishes Avith this day, which for 
Italy is a day of regeneration. That "I " which, dressed 
in mourning, has perhaps drawn upon your sympathies, 
gentle reader, thus far only, because around you all was 
grief and silence, now disappears like a little star on 
the appearance of the god of day. 

And my veil ? 

41 



482 TAKING OFF THE ^^IL 

While the priests of San Gennaro, in order to avoid 
the solemnity of a Te Deum, and to escape the custom- 
ary prayers, " Save thy people and thy patrimony, O 
God ! " detained Garibaldi with the idle inspection of 
their treasures, I, among others, accompanied him ; and 
while there, I took off my veil from my head and de- 
posited it upon the altar, thus restoring to the church 
what it had bestowed upon me twenty years before. 
VoTUM Feci. Gratiajvi Accepi. 

From that moment the last link that connected me 
with the monastic life was severed, and the name of 
cittadina (citizeness) , which, given to all, contains no 
distinction, became for me the most appropriate title; 
better, even, than the antique Civus Romanus. There- 
fore, whenever any one thenceforward called me " sister," 
or "canoness," I interrupted them saying : — 

" Call me cittadina, if you please, and if you would 
add any distinction, say that citizeness, who provoked 
and promoted il Plebiscito of the women of Naples." If I 
am no longer a friend to the sottana nera, I do not cer- 
tainly retain any resentment towards it. I deposited 
all my rancor, with my veil, on the altar. 

And for many practical lessons in life, I acknowledge 
myself indebted to my long seclusion. If, in the course 
of twenty years, my destiny had not riveted to my feet 
the chain of the galleys, if I had married young, should 
I, in the school of the world, have learned as well to 
discern the wicked passions at their birth ; those pas- 



FINALLY HAPPY. 483 

sions which abound in the close atmosphere of the con- 
vent, and which feed upon anger, rancor, jealousies, and 
suspicions ? 

About this time I made the acquaintance of a middle 
aged man, whose elevated sentiments, in harmony with 
the firmness of his character, captivated my respect and 
rendered him, to my mind, greatly superior to the gen- 
erality of those individuals Avho boast of a princely 
lineage. 

He wore engraved on his heart the picture of re- 
deemed Italy, and upon his head, a large cicatrice, the 
record of a wound received on the 15th of May from 
the sword of a Swiss mercenary. The conformity of 
our opinions and vicissitudes strengthened our friend- 
ship. We determined, shortly after, to consecrate our 
sympathies with the impress of religion, and we applied 
to the church for its benediction. 

The church formally refused its assent I 

Demands and supplications were in vain before that 
inexorable and pyramidal non possumus. We were 
obliged to call upon a clergyman of an opposite faith 
for a blessing on our marriage ! 

Behold me finally happy. 

By the side of a husband who adores me, to whom I 

respond with equal afifection, I find myself in the state 



484 FINALLY HAPPY. 

in which God placed woman at the close of the first 
week of the creation. 

Why, fulfilling the offices of a good wife, of a good 
mother, of a good citizen, why may I not aspire even 
to the treasury of the Divine compassion ? 



THE END. 






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